American  jflen  of  letters. 


EDITED  BY 


CHAKLES  DUDLEY  WARNER. 


-  • 


American  3®cn  of  3tctt«#. 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 


BY 


THOMAS   R,  LOUNSBURY, 

PBOPESSOB  OP  ENGLISH  IN  THE  SHEFFIELD   SCIENTIFIC  SCHOOL, 
YALE   COLLEGE. 


HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY. 

New  York:    11    East  Seventeenth  Street. 

pre£&  Camfcri&jje. 

1884. 


Copyright,  1882, 
BY  THOMAS  B.  LOUJvSBDRY 

2  ^.r  2  3 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge: 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  II.  0.  Houghton  &  Co. 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


WHEN  Cooper  lay  on  his  death-bed  he  enjoined  his 
family  to  permit  no  authorized  account  of  his  life  to  be 
prepared.  A  wish  even,  that  was  uttered  at  such  a 
tune,  would  have  had  the  weight  of  a  command  ;  and 
from  that  day  to  this  pious  affection  has  carried  out  in  the 
spirit  as  well  as  to  the  letter  the  desire  of  the  dying  man. 
No  biography  of  Cooper  has,  in  consequence,  ever  ap 
peared.  Nor  is  it  unjust  to  say  that  the  sketches  of  his 
career,  which  are  found  either  in  magazines  or  cyclopae 
dias,  are  not  only  unsatisfactory  on  account  of  their  in 
completeness,  but  are  all  in  greater  or  less  degree  un 
trustworthy  in  their  details. 

It  is  a  necessary  result  of  this  dying  injunction  that 
the  direct  and  authoritative  sources  of  information  con 
tained  in  family  papers  are  closed  to  the  biographer. 
Still  it  is  believed  that  no  facts  of  importance  in  the 
record  of  an  eventful  and  extraordinary  career  have 
been  omitted  or  have  even  been  passed  over  slightingly. 
A  large  part  of  the  matter  contained  in  this  volume  has 
never  been  given  to  the  public  in  any  form :  and  for 
that  reason  among  others  no  pains  have  been  spared  to 
make  this  narrative  absolutely  accurate,  so  far  as  it  goes. 
Correction  of  any  errors,  if  such  are  found,  will  be  grate 
fully  welcomed. 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

— *^ 


CHAPTER 

1789-1820. 

IN  one  of  the  interior  counties  of  New  York,  less 
than  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  in  a  direct  line  from 
the  commercial  capital  of  the  Union,  lies  the  village  of 
Cooperstown.  The  place  is  not  and  probably  never 
will  be  an  important  one  ;  but  in  its  situation  and  sur 
roundings  nature  has  given  it  much  that  wealth  cannot 
furnish  or  art  create.  It  stands  on  the  southeastern 
shore  of  Otsego  Lake,  just  at  the  point  where  the  Sus- 
quehanna  pours  out  from  it  on  its  long  journey  to  the 
Chesapeake.  The  river  runs  here  in  a  rapid  current 
through  a  narrow  valley,  shut  in  by  parallel  ranges  of 
lofty  hills.  The  lake,  not  more  than  nine  miles  in 
length,  is  twelve  hundred  feet  above  tide-water.  Low 
and  wooded  points  of  land  and  sweeping  bays  give  to 
its  shores  the  attraction  of  continuous  diversity.  About 
it,  on  every  side,  stand  hills,  which  slope  gradually  or 
rise  sharply  to  heights  varying  from  two  to  five  hundred 
feet.  Lake,  forest,  and  stream  unite  to  form  a  scene  of 
quiet  but  picturesque  beauty,  that  hardly  needs  the  ad 
ditional  charm  of  romantic  association  which  has  been 
imparted  to  it. 

Though  it  was  here  that  the  days  of  Cooper's  child- 
1 


2  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

hood  were  passed,  it  was  not  here  that  he  was  born. 
When  that  event  took  place  the  village  had  hardly  even 
an  existence  on  paper.  Cooper's  father,  a  resident  of 
Burlington,  New  Jersey,  had  come,  shortly  after  the 
close  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  into  the  possession  of 
vast  tracts  of  land,  embracing  many  thousands  of  acres, 
along  the  head-waters  of  the  Susquehanna.  In  178G  he 
began  the  settlement  of  the  spot,  and  in  1788  laid  out 
the  plot  of  the  village  which  bears  his  name,  and  built 
for  himself  a  dwelling-house.  On  the  10th  of  Novem 
ber,  1790,  his  whole  family  —  consisting,  with  the  ser 
vants,  of  fifteen  persons  — reached  the  place.  The  future 
novelist  was  then  a  little  less  than  thirteen  months  old, 
for  he  had  been  born  at  Burlington  on  the  15th  of  Sep 
tember  of  the  year  before.  His  father  had  determined  to 
make  the  new  settlement  his  permanent  home.  He  ac 
cordingly  began  in  1796,  and  in  1799  completed,  the  erec 
tion  of  a  mansion  which  bore  the  name  of  Otsesro  Hall. 

O 

It  was  then  and  remained  for  a  long  time  afterward  the 
largest  private  residence  in  that  portion  of  the  State. 
When  in  1834  it  came  into  the  hands  of  the  son,  it  still 
continued  to  be  the  principal  dwelling  in  the  flourishing 
village  that  had  grown  up  about  it. 

On  his  father's  side  Cooper  was  of  Quaker  descent. 
The  original  emigrant  ancestor  had  come  over  in  1679, 
and  had  made  extensive  purchases  of  land  in  the  prov 
ince  of  New  Jersey.  In  that  colony  or  in  Pennsylva 
nia  his  descendants  for  a  long  time  remained.  Cooper 
himself  was  the  first  one,  of  the  direct  line  certainly, 
that  ever  even  revisited  the  mother-country.  These 
facts  are  of  slight  importance  in  themselves.  In  the 
general  disbelief,  however,  which  fifty  years  ago  pre 
vailed  in  Great  Britain,  that  anything  good  could  come 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MAX II GOD.  3 

out  of  this  western  Nazareth,  Cooper  was  immediately 
furnished  with  an  English  nativity  as  soon  as  he  had 
won  reputation.  The  same  process  that  gave  to  Irving  4 
a  birthplace  in  Devonshire,  furnished  one  also  to  him 
in  the  Isle  of  Man.  When  this  fiction  was  exploded, 
the  fact  of  emigration  was  pushed  merely  a  little  further 
back.  It  was  transferred  to  the  father,  who  was  repre 
sented  as  having  gone  from  Buckinghamshire  to  Amer 
ica.  This  latter  assertion  is  still  to  be  found  in  authori 
ties  that  are  generally  trustworthy.  But  the  original 
one  served  a  useful  purpose  during  its  day.  This  as 
sumed  birthplace  in  the  Isle  of  Man  enabled  the  Eng 
lish  journalists  that  were  offended  with  Cooper's  strict 
ures  upon  their  country  to  speak  of  him,  as  at  one  time 
they  often  did,  as  an  English  renegade. 

His  mother's  maiden  name  was  Elizabeth  Fenimore, 
and  the  family  to  which  she  belonged  was  of  Swedish 
descent.  Cooper  himself  was  the  eleventh  of  twelve 
children.  Most  of  his  brothers  and  sisters  died  long  be 
fore  him,  five  of  them  in  infancy.  His  own  name  was 
at  first  .simply  James  Cooper,  and  in  "this"  way  he  wrote 
it  until  1826.  But  in  April  of  that  year  the  Legislature 
of  New  York  passed  an  act  changing  the  family  name 
to  Fenimore-Cooper.  This  was  done  in  accordance  with 
the  wish  of  his  grandmother,  whose  descendants  in  the 
direct  male  line  had  died  out.  But  he  seldom  employed 
the  hyphen  in  writing,  and  finally  gave  up  the  use  of  it 
altogether. 

The  early  childhood  of  Cooper  was  mainly  passed  in 
the  wilderness  at  the  very  time  when  the  first  wave  of 
civilization  was  beginning  to  break  against  its  hills. 
There  was  everything  in  what  he  saw  and  heard  to  im 
press  the  mind  of  the  growing  boy.  He  was  on  the 


4  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE  COOPER. 

border,  if  indeed  he  could  not  justly  be  said  to  be  in 
the  midst  of  mighty  and  seemingly  interminable  woods 
which  stretched  for  hundreds  of  miles  to  the  westward. 
Isolated  clearings  alone  broke  this  vast  expanse  of  foli 
age,  which,  covering  the  valleys  and  clinging  to  the  sides 
and  crowning  the  summits  of  the  hills,  seemed  to  rise 
and  fall  like  the  waves  of  the  sea.  The  settler's  axe 
had  as  yet  scarcely  dispelled  the  perpetual  twilight  of 
the  primeval  forest.  The  little  lake  lay  enclosed  in  a 
border  of  gigantic  trees.  Over  its  waters  hung  the  in 
terlacing  branches  of  mighty  oaks  and  beeches  and 
pines.  Its  surface  was  frequented  by  flocks  of  wild, 
aquatic  birds,  —  the  duck,  the  gull,  and  the  loon.  In  this 
lofty  valley  among  the  hills  were  also  to  be  found,  then 
as  now,  in  fullest  perfection,  the  clear  atmosphere,  the 
cloudless  skies,  and  the  brilliant  light  of  midsummer 
suns,  that  characterize  everywhere  the  American  high 
lands.  More  even  than  the  beauty  and  majesty  of  na 
ture  that  lay  open  to  the  sight  was  the  mystery  that 
constantly  appealed  to  the  imagination  in  what  might 
lie  hidden  in  the  depths  of  a  wilderness  that  swept  far 
beyond  glance  of  eye  or  reach  of  foot.  This,  indeed, 
may.  have  affected  the  feelings  of  only  a  few,  but  there 
were  numerous  interests  and  anxieties  which  all  had  in 
common.  The  little  village  had  early  gone  through 
many  of  the  trials  which  mark  the  history  of  most  of 
the  settlements  in  regions  to  which  few  travelers  found 
their  way  and  commerce  seldom  came.  Remote  from 
sources  of  supply,  and  difficult  of  access,  it  had  known 
the  time  when  its  population,  scanty  as  it  was,  suffered 
from  the  scarcity  of  food.  Sullivan's  successful  expedi 
tion  against  the  Six  Nations  did  not  suffice  to  keep  it 
from  the  alarm  of  savage  attack  that  never  came. 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD.  5 

The  immense  forest  shutting  in  the  hamlet  on  every 
side  had  terrors  to  some  as  real  as  were  its  attractions 
to  others.  Its  recesses  were  still  the  refuge  of  the 
deer ;  but  they  were  also  the  haunt  of  the  wildcat,  the 
wolf,  and  the  bear.  All  these  characteristics  of  his 
early  home  made  deep  impression  upon  a  nature  fond 
of  adventure,  and  keenly  susceptible  to  the  charm  of 
scenery.  "When  afterward  in  the  first  flush  of  his  fame 
Cooper  set  out  to  revive  the  memory  of  the  days  of  the 
pioneers,  he  said  that  he  might  have  chosen  for  his  sub 
ject  happier  periods,  more  interesting  events,  and  possi 
bly  more  beauteous  scenes,  but  he  could  not  have  taken 
any  that  would  lie  so  close  to  his  heart.  The  man,  in 
deed,  never  forgot  what  had  been  dear  to  the  boy ;  and 
to  the  spot  where  his  earliest  years  were  spent  he  re 
turned  to  pass  the  latter  part  of  his  life. 

The  original  settlement,  moreover,  was  composed  of 
a  more  than  usually  singular  mixture  of  the  motley 
crowd  that  always  throngs  to  the  American  frontier. 
The  shock  of  convulsions  in  lands  far  distant  reached 
even  to  the  highland  valley  shut  in  by  the  Otsego  hills. 
Representatives  of  almost  every  nationality  in  Christen 
dom  and  believers  in  almost  every  creed,  found  in  it  an 
asylum  or  a  home.  Into  this  secluded  haven  drifted 
men  whose  lives  had  been  wrecked  in  the  political 
storms  that  were  then  shaking  Europe.  Frenchmen, 
Dutchmen,  Germans,  and  Poles,  came  and  tarried  for  a 
longer  or  shorter  time.  Here^Talleyrand,  then  an  ex 
ile,  spent  several  days  with  Cooperls'TaTtier,  and,  true  to 
national  instinct,  wrote,  according  to  local  tradition,  com 
plimentary  verses,  still  preserved,  on  Cooper's  sister. 
An  ex-captain  of  the  British  army  was  one  of  the  orig 
inal  merchants  of  the  place.  An  ex-governor  of  Mar- 


6  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

tinique  was  for  a  time  the  village  grocer.  But  the  pre 
vailing  element  in  the  population  were  the  men  of  New 
England,  born  levelers  of  the  forest,  the  greatest  wield- 
ers  of  the  axe  the  world  has  ever  known.  Over  the 
somewhat  wild  and  turbulent  democracy,  made  up  of 
materials  so  diverse,  the  original  proprietor  reigned  a 
sort  of  feudal  lord,  rather  by  moral  qualities  than  by 
any  conceded  right. 

Cooper's  early  instruction  was  received  in  the  village 
school,  carried  on  in  a  building  erected  in  1795,  and 
rejoicing  in  the  somewhat  pretentious  name  of  the 
Academy.  The  country  at  that  time,  however,  furnished 
few  facilities  for  higher  education  anywhere  ;  on  tho 
frontier  there  were  necessarily  none.  Accordingly  Cooper 
was  early  sent  to  Albany.  There  he  entered  the  family 
of  the  rector  of  St.  Peter's  Church,  and  became,  with 
three  or  four  other  boys,  one  of  his  private  pupils.  This 
gentleman,  the  son  of  an  English  clergyman,  and  him 
self  a  graduate  of  an  English  university,  had  made  his 
ways  to  these  western  wilds  with  a  fair  amount  of  clas 
sical  learning,  with  thorough  methods  of  study,  and  as 
it  afterwards  turned  out,  Cooper  tells  us,  with  another 
man's  wife.  This  did  not,  however,  prevent  him  from 
insisting  upon  the  immense  superiority  of  the  mother- 
country  in  morals  as  well  as  manners.  A  man  of  ability 
and  marked  character,  he  clearly  exerted  over  the  im 
pressionable  mind  of  his  pupil  a  greater  influence  than 
the  latter  ever  realized.  He  was  in  many  respects,  in 
deed,  a  typical  Englishman  of  the  educated  class  of 
that  time.  He  had  the  profoundest  contempt  for  re 
publics  and  republican  institutions.  The  American  Rev 
olution  he  looked  upon  as  only  a  little  less  monstrous 
than  the  French,  which'  was  the  sum  of  all  iniquities. 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD.  7 

Connection  with  any  other  church  than  his  own  was  to 
be  shunned,  not  at  all  because  it  was  unchristian,  but 
because  it  was  ungentlemanly  and  low.  But  whatever 
his  opinions  and  prejudices  were,  in  the  almost  absolute 
dearth  then  existing  in  this  country  of  even  respectable 
scholarship,  the  opportunity  to  be  under  his  instruc 
tion  was  a  singular  advantage.  Unfortunately  it  'did 
not  continue  as  long  as  it  was  desirable.  In  1802  he 
died.  It  had  been  the  intention  to  fife  Cooper  to  enter 
the  junior  class  of  Yale  College ;  that  project  had  now 
to  be  abandoned.  Accordingly  he  became,  at  the  be 
ginning  of  the  second  term  of  its  freshman  year,  a 
member  of  the  class  which  was  graduated  in  1806.  He 
was  then  but  a  mere  boy  of  thirteen,  and  with  the  ex 
ception  of  the  poet  Hillhouse,  two  weeks  his  junior,  was 
the  youngest  student  in  the  college. 

Cooper  himself  informs  us  that  he  played  all  his  first 
year,  and  implies  that  he  did  little  study  during  those 
which  followed.  To  a  certain  extent  the  comparative 
excellence  of  his  preparation  turned  out  a  disadvantage  ; 
the  rigid  training  he  had  received  enabled  him  to  ac 
complish  without  effort  what  his  fellow-students  found 
difficult.  Scholarship  was  at  so  low  an  ebb  that  the 
ability  to  scan  Latin  was  looked  upon  as  a  high  accom 
plishment  ;  and  he  himself  asserts  that  the  class  to 
which  he  belonged  was  the  first  in  Yale  College  that 
had  ever  tried  it.  This  may  be  questioned ;  but  we 
need  not  feel  any  distrust  of  his  declaration,  that  little 
learning  of  any  kind  found  its  way  into  his  head.  Least 
of  all  will  he  be  inclined  to  doubt  it  whom  extended  ex 
perience  in  the  class-room  has  taught  to  view  with  pro- 
foundest  respect  the  infinite  capability  of  the  human 
mind  to  resist  the  introduction  of  knowledge. 


8  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

Far  better  than  study,  Cooper  liked  to  take  solitary 
walks  about  the  wooded  hills  surrounding  New  Haven, 
and  the  shores  of  the  bay  upon  which  it  lies.  These 
nursed  the  fondness  for  outdoor  life  and  scenery  which 
his  early  associations  had  inspired.  In  these  commun- 
ings  with  nature,  he  was  unconsciously  storing  his  mind 
with  impressions  and  images,  in  the  representation  and 
delineation  of  which  he  was  afterward  to  attain  surpass 
ing  excellence.  But  the  study  of  scenery,  however 
desirable  in  itself,  cannot  easily  be  included  in  a  college 
curriculum.  No  proficiency  in  it  can  well  compensate 
for  failure  in  studies  of  perhaps  less  intrinsic  importance. 
The  neglect  of  these  latter  had  no  tendency  to  recom 
mend  him  to  the  regard  of  those  in  authority.  Positive 
faults  were  in  course  of  time  added  to  negative.  A 
frolic  in  which  he  was  engaged  during  his  third  year 
was  attended  by  consequences  more  serious  than  dis 
favor.  It  led  to  his  dismissal.  The  father  took  the 
boy's  side,  and  the  usual  struggle  followed  between 
the  parents  and  those  who,  according  to  a  pretty  well 
worn-out  educational  theory,  stand  to  the  student  in 
place  of  parents.  In  this  particular  case  the  latter  tri 
umphed,  and  Cooper  left  Yale.  In  spite  of  his  dismis 
sal  he  retained  pleasant  recollections  of  some  of  his  old 
instructors ;  and  with  one  of  them,  Professor  Silliman, 
he  kept  up  in  later  years  friendly  personal  relations  and 
occasional  correspondence. 

It  had  been  a  misfortune  for  the  future  author  to  lose 
the  severe  if  somewhat  wooden  drill  of  his  preparatory 
instructor.  It  was  an  additional  misfortune  to  lose  the 
education,  scanty  and  defective  as  it  then  was,  which 
was  imparted  by  the  college.  It  might  not  and  prob 
ably  would  not  have  contributed  anything  to  Cooper's 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD.  9 

intellectual  development  in  the  way  of  accuracy  of 
thought  or  of  statement.  It  would  not  in  all  probability 
have  added  materially  to  his  stock  of  knowledge.  But 
with  all  its  inefficiency  and  inadequacy,  it  would  very 
certainly  have  had  the  effect  of  teaching  him  to  aim  far 
more  than  he  did  at  perfection  of  form.  He  possibly 
gained  more  than  he  lost  by  being  transferred  at  so 
early  an  age  to  other  scenes.  But  the  lack  of  certain 
qualities  in  his  writings,  which  educated  men  are  per 
haps  the  only  ones  to  notice,  can  be  traced  pretty  di 
rectly  to  this  lack  of  preliminary  intellectual  drill. 

His  academical  career  having  been  thus  suddenly  cut 
short,  he  entered  in  a  little  while  upon  one  better  suited 
to  his  adventurous  nature.  Boys  are  sent  to  sea,  he 
tells  us  in  one  of  his  later  novels,  for  the  cure  of  their 
ethical  ailings.  This  renovating  influence  of  ocean  life 
he  had  at  any  rate  a  speedy  opportunity  to  try.  It  was 
decided  that  he  should  enter  the  navy.  The  position  of 
Jhis^  father,  who  had  been  for  several  years  a  representa 
tive  ia.  Congress,  and  was  a  leading  member  of  the 
Federalist  partyj  naturally  held  out  assurances  that  the 
son  would  receive  all  the  advancement  to  which  he  would 
be  legitimately  entitled.  At  that  time  no  naval  school 
existed.  It  was  the  custom,  in  consequence,  for  boys 
purposing  to  fit  themselves  for  the  position  of  officers 
to  serve  a  sort  of  apprenticeship  in  the  merchant  ma 
rine.  Accordingly  in  the  autumn  of  1806,  Cooper  was  \ 
placed  on  board  a  vessel  that  was  to  sail  from  the  port 
of  New  York  with  a  freight  of  flour  to  Cowes  and  a 
market.  The  ship  was  named  the  Sterling,  and  was  ! 
commanded  by  Captain  John  Johnston,  of  Wiscasset, 
Maine,  who  was  also  part  owner.  Cooper's  position 
and  prospects  were  well  known  ;  but  he  was  employed 


10  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

regularly  before  the  mast  and  was  never  admitted  to 
the  cabin.  The  vessel  cleared  from  the  port  of  New 
York  on  the  16th  of  October.  The  passage  was  a  long 
and  stormy  one  ;  forty  days  went  by  before  land  was 
seen  after  it  had  once  been  left  behind.  The  ship 
reached  the  other  side  just  at  the  time  when  the  British 
Channel  was  alive  with  vessels  of  war  in  consequence  of 
one  of  the  periodical  anticipations  of  invasions  from 
France.  It  went  to  London,  and  stayed  for  some  time 
there  discharging  its  cargo  and  taking  in  new.  Cooper 
embraced  the  opportunity  to  see  all  the  sights  he  could 
of  the  great  metropolis.  "  He  had  a  rum  time  of  it  in 
his  sailor  rig,"  said  afterward  one  of  his  shipmates,  "  but 
hoisted  in  a  wonderful  deal  of  gibberish,  according  to 
his  own  account  of  the  cruise." 

The -Sterling  sailed  with  freight  in  January,  1807, 
for  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar.  It  took  on  board  a  cargo 
of  barilla  at  Aguilas  and  Almeria,  and  returned  to  Eng 
land,  reaching  the  Thames  in  May.  Both  going  and 
coming  the  voyage  was  a  stormy  one,  and  during  it 
several  of  the  incidents  occurred  that  Cooper  worked 
up  afterward  into  powerful  passages  in  his  sea  novels. 
In  London  the  vessel  lay  several  weeks,  discharging  its 
cargo  and  taking  in  more,  which  this  time  consisted  of 
dry  goods.  Towards  the  end  of  July,  it  left  London 
for  America,  and  reached  Philadelphia  on  the  18th  of 
September,  after  another  long  and  stormy  passage  of 
fifty-two  days. 

This  was  Cooper's  introduction  to  sea  life.  During 
the  year  he  had  spent  in  the  merchant  vessel  he  had 
seen  a  good  deal  of  hard  service.  His  preparatory 
studies  having  been  completed  after  a  fashion,  he  now 
regularly  entered  the  navy.  His  commission  as  mid- 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD.  11 

shipman  bears  date  the  1st  of  January,  1808.  On  the 
24th  of  the  following  February  he  was  ordered  to  re 
port  to  the  commanding  naval  officer  at  New  York. 
But  the  records  of  the  government  give  little  informa 
tion  as  to  the  duties  to  which  he  was  assigned  during 
the  years  he  remained  in  its  service.  The  knowledge 
we  have  of  his  movements  comes  mainly  from  what  he 
himself  incidentally  discloses  in  published  works  or  let 
ters  of  a  later  period.  The  facts  we  learn  from  all  sources 
together,  are  but  few.  He  served  for  a  while  on  board 
the  Vesuvius  in  1808.  During  that  year  it  seemed  as 
if  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  were  about  to 
drift  into  war.  Preparations  of  various  kinds  were 
made  ;  and  one  of  the  things  ordered  was  the  dispatch 
to  Lake  Ontario  of  a  party,  of  which  Cooper  was  one, 
under  the  command  of  Lieutenant  Woolsey.  The  inten 
tion  was  to  build  a  brig  of  sixteen  guns  to  command 
that  inland  water ;  and  the  port  of  Oswego,  then  a  mere 
hamlet  of  some  twenty  houses,  was  the  place  selected 
for  its  construction.  Around  it  lay  a  wilderness,  thirty 
or  forty  miles  in  depth.  Here  the  party  spent  the  fol 
lowing  winter,  and  during  it  the  Oneida,  as  the  brig  was 
called,  was  finished.  Early  in  the  spring  of  1809  it  was 
launched.  By  that  time,  however,  the  war-cloud  had 
blown  over,  and  the  vessel  was  not  then  used  for  the 
purpose  for  which  it  had  been  constructed.  More  per 
manent  results,  however,  were  accomplished  than  the 
building  of  a  ship.  The  knowledge  and  experience 
which  Cooper  then  gained  was  something  beyond  and 
above  what  belonged  to  his  profession.  It  is  to  his 
residence  on  the  shores  of  that  inland  sea  that  we  owe 
the  vivid  picture  drawn  of  Lake  Ontario  in  "  The  Path 
finder  "  and  of  the  wilderness  which  then  surrounded  it 
on  every  side. 


12  JAMES  FEN IM  ORE  COOPER. 

After  the  completion  of  the  Oneida,  Cooper  accom 
panied  Lieutenant  Woolsey  on  a  visit  to  Niagara  Falls. 
The  navy  records  show  that  on  the  10th  of  June,  1809, 
he  was  left  by  his  commander  in  charge  of  the  gunboats 
on  Lake  Champlaiu.  They  further  reveal  the  fact  that 
on  the  27th  of  September  of  this  same  year  he  was 
granted  a  furlough  to  make  a  European  voyage.  This 
project  for  some  reason  was  given  up,  as  on  the  13th  of 
November,  1809,  he  was  ordered  to  the  Wasp,  then 
under  the  command  of  Lawrence,  who  afterwards  fell 
in  the  engagement  between  the  Shannon  and  the  Chesa 
peake.  To  this  officer,  like  himself  a  native  of  Bur 
lington,  he  was  very  warmly  attached.  The  next  notice 
of  him  contained  in  the  official  records  is  to  the  effect 
that  on  the  9th  of  May,  1810,  permission  was  granted 
him  to  go  on  furlough  for  twelve  months.  Whether 
he  availed  himself  of  it  is  not  known.  An  event  soon 
occurred,  however,  that  put  an  end  to  his  naval  career 
as  effectively  as  one  had  previously  been  put  to  his 
collegiate.  An  attachment  had  sprung  up  some  time 
before  between  him  and  a  Miss  DeLjincey.  On  the 
1st  of  January,  1811,  the  couple  were  married  at 
Mamaroneck,  Westchester  County,  New  York.  Cooper 
was  then  a  little  more  than  twenty-one  years  old  ;  the 
bride  lacked  very  little  of  being  nineteen. 

His  wife  belonged  to  a  Huguenot  family,  which  to 
wards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  had  fled  from 
France,  and  had  finally  settled  in  Westchester.  During 
the  Revolutionary  War  the  DeLanceys  had  taken  the 
side  of  the  crown  against  the  colonies.  Several  of  them 
held  positions  in  the  British  army.  John  Peter  De- 
Lancey,  whose  daughter  Cooper  had  married,  had  been 
himself  a  captain  in  that  service.  After  the  recognition 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD.  13 

of  American  independence  he  went  to  England,  but, 
having  resigned  his  commission,  returned  in  1789  to 
this  country,  and  spent  the  remainder  of  his  life  at  his 
home  in  Mamaroneck.  The  fact  that  his  kinsmen  by 
marriage  had  belonged  to  the  defeated  party  in  the  Rev 
olutionary  struggle  led  Cooper  in  his  writings  to  treat 
the  Tories,  as  they  were  called,  with  a  fairness  and  gen 
erosity  which  in  that  day  few  were  disposed  to  show, 
at  least  in  print.  This  tenderness  is  plainly  to  be  seen 
in  "  The  Spy,"  written  at  the  beginning  of  his  career ;  it 
is  still  more  marked  in  '» Wyandotte,"  produced  in  the 
latter  part  of  it,  when  circumstances  had  made  him  pro 
foundly  dissatisfied  with  much  that  he  saw  about  him. 
One  of  the  last,  though  least  heated,  of  the  many  contro 
versies  in  which  he  was  engaged  was  in  regard  to  the 
conduct  on  a  particular  occasion  of  General  Oliver  De- 
Lancey,  a  cousin  of  his  wife's  father.  This  officer  was 
charged  unjustly,  as  Cooper  believed,  with  the  brutal 
treatment  of  the  American  General  "Woodhull,  who  had 
fallen  into  his  hands*  The  discussion  in  regard  to  this 
point  was  carried  on  in  the  "  New  York  Home  Journal" 
in  the  early  part  of  1848. 

It  seldom  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  biographer  to  record 
a  home  life  more  serene  and  happy  than  that  which  fell 
to  the  share  of  the  man  whose  literary  life  is  the  storm 
iest  to  be  found  in  the  history  of  American  men  of  let 
ters.  Cooper,  like  many  persons  of  fiery  temperament 
and  strong  will,  was  very  easily  managed  through  his 
affections.  In  theory  he  maintained  the  headship  of  man 
in  the  household  in  the  extremest  form.  He  gives  in 
several  of  his  works  no  uncertain  indication  of  his  views 
on  that  point.  This  only  serves  to  make  more  conspic 
uous  the  fact,  which  forces  itself  repeatedly  upon  the 


14  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

attention,  that  his  movements  were  largely,  if  not 
mainly,  controlled  by  his  wife.  This  becomes  notice 
able  at  the  very  beginning  of  their  union.  She  was 
unwilling  to  undergo  the  long  and  frequent  separations 
from  her  husband  that  the  profession  of  a  naval  officer 
would  demand.  Accordingly,  he  abandoned  the  idea  of 
continuing  in  it.  The  acceptance  of  his  resignation 
bears  date  the  6th  of  May,  1811.  He  had  then  been 
regularly  in  the  service  a  little  less  than  three  years  and 
a  half. 

After  quitting  the  navy  Cooper  led  for  a  long  time  a 
somewhat  unsettled  life.  For  about  a  year  and  a  half 
he  resided  at  Heathcote  Hall,  Mamaroneck,  the  resi 
dence  of  his  wife's  father.  He  then  rented  a  small  cot 
tage  in  the  neighborhood,  and  in  this  remained  about  a 
year.  His  early  home,  however,  was  the  spot  to  which 
his  heart  turned.  To  Cooperstown,  in  consequence,  he 
went  back  in  1814,  taking  up  his  residence  at  a  place 
outside  the  village  limits,  called  Fenimore.  He  pur 
posed  to  devote  his  attention  to  agriculture,  and  accord 
ingly  began  at  this  spot  the  building  of  a  large  stone 
farm  house.  While  it  was  in  process  of  construction 
his  wife,  anxious  to  be  near  her  own  family,  persuaded 
him  to  go  back  to  Westchester.  Thither  in  1817  he 
went,  leaving  his  dwelling  at  Fenimore  unfinished,  and 
in  1823  it  was  completely  destroyed  by  fire.  In  West- 
Chester,  a  few  months  after  his  return,  he  took  up  his 
residence,  in  the  town  of  Scarsdale,  on  what  was  called 
the  Angevine  farm,  from  the  name  of  a  French  family 
that  had  occupied  it  for  several  generations.  The  site 
of  his  dwelling  was  a  commanding  one,  and  gave  from 
the  south  front  an  extensive  view  of  the  country  about 
it  and  of  Long  Island  Sound.  It  remained  his  home 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD.  15 

until  the  literary  profession,  upon  which  he  unexpectedly 
entered,  forced  him  to  leave  it  for  New  York  city. 

Great  changes  had  occurred  during  these  years,  or 
were  occurring,  in  his  personal  surroundings.  Plis 
father  had  died  in  1809,  and  his  mother  in  3817.  Be 
fore  1820  five  daughters  had  been  born  to  him.  The 
first  of  these  did  not  live  to  the  age  of  two  years ;  but 
the  others  all  reached  maturity.  The  second,  Susan 
Augusta,  herself  an  authoress,  became  in  his  later  years 
his  secretary  and  amanuensis,  and  would  naturally  have 
written  his  life,  had  not  his  unfortunate  dying  injunc 
tion  stood  in  the  way.  A  son,  Fenimore,  born  at  An- 
gevine,  in  1821,  died  early,  and  his  youngest  child,  Paul, 
now  a,  lawyer  at  Albany,  was  not  born  until  after  his 
removal  to  New  York  cit}*-.  Surrounded  by  his  grow 
ing  family,  he  led  for  the  two  or  three  years  following 
1817  a  life  that  gave  no  indication  of  what  was  to  be 
his  career.  His  thoughts  were  principally  directed  to 
improving  the  little  estate  that  had  come  into  his  pos 
session.  He  planted  trees,  he  built  fences,  he  drained 
swamps,  he  planned  a  lawn.  The  one  thing  which  he 
did  not  do  was  to  write. 


CHAPTER  II. 

1820-1822. 

COOPER  had  now  reached  the  age  of  thirty.  Up  to 
this  time  he  had  written  nothing,  nor  had  he  prepared 
or  collected  any  material  for  future  use.  No  thought 
of  taking  up  authorship  as  a  profession  had  entered  his 
mind.  Even  the  physical  labor  involved  in  the  mere 
act  of  writing  was  itself  distasteful.  Unexpectedly, 
however,  he  now  began  a  course  of  literary  production 
that  was  to  continue  without  abatement  during  the  little 
more  than  thirty  years  which  constituted  the  remainder 
of  his  life. 

Seldom  has  a  first  work  been  due  more  entirely  to 
accident  than  that  which  he  composed  at  the  outset  of 
his  career.  In  his  home  at  Angevine  he  was  one  day 
reading  to  his  wife  a  novel  descriptive  of  English  soci 
ety.  It  did  not  please  him,  and  he  suddenly  laid  down 
the  book  and  said,  "  I  believe  I  could  write  a  better 
story  myself."  Challenged  to  make  good  his  boast,  he 
sat  down  to  perform  the  task,  and  wrote  out  a  few  pages 
of  the  tale  he  had  formed  in  his  mind.  The  encourage 
ment  of  his  wife  determined  him  to  go  on  and  complete 
it,  and  when  completed  the  advice  of  friends  decided  him 
to  publish  it.  Accordingly,  on  the  10th  of  November, 
1820,  a  novel  in  two  volumes,  entitled  "  Precaution," 
made  its  appearance  in  New  York.  In  this  purely  hap 
hazard  way  did  the  most  prolific  of  American  authors 
begin  his  literary  life. 


ENTRANCE  UPON  A  LITERARY  LIFE.  17 

The  work  was  brought  out  in  a  bad  shape,  and  its 
typographical  defects  were  unconsciously  exaggerated 
by  Cooper  in  a  revised  edition  of  it,  which  was  published 
after  his  return  from  Europe.  In  the  preface  to  the 
latter  he  said  that  no  novel  of  modern  times  had  ever 
been  worse  printed  than  was  this  story  as  it  originally 
appeared.  The  manuscript,  he  admitted,  was  bad  ;  but 
the  proof-reading  could  only  be  described  as  execrable. 
Periods  turned  up  in  the  middle  of  sentences,  while  the 
places  where  they  should  have  been  knew  them  not. 
Passages,  in  consequence,  were  rendered  obscure,  and 
even  entire  paragraphs  became  unintelligible.  A  care 
ful  reading  of  the  edition  of  1820  will  show  something 
to  suggest,  but  little  to  justify,  these  sweeping  assertions. 
But  the  work  has  never  been  much  read  even  by  the 
admirers  of  the  author ;  and  it  is  a  curious  illustration  of 
this  fact,  that  the  personal  friend,  who  delivered  the 
funeral  discourse  upon  his  life  and  writings,  avoided  the 
discussion  of  it  with  such  care  that  he  was  betrayed  into 
exposing  the  lack  of  interest  he  sought  to  hide.  Bryant 
confessed  he  had  not  read  "  Precaution."  He  had 
merely  dipped  into  the  first  edition  of  it,  and  had  been 
puzzled  and  repelled  by  the  profusion  of  commas  and 
other  pauses.  The  non-committalism  of  cautious  criti 
cism  could  hardly  hope  to  go  farther.  Punctuation  has 
had  its  terrors  and  its  triumphs ;  but  this  victory  over 
the  editor  of  a  daily  newspaper  must  be  deemed  its 
proudest  recorded  achievement.  The  poet  went  on  to 
say  that  to  a  casual  inspection  the  revised  edition,  which 
Cooper  afterward  brought  out,  seemed  almost  another 
work.  The  inspection  which  could  come  to  such  a  con 
clusion  must  have  been  of  that  exceedingly  casual  kind 
which  contents  itself  with  contemplating  the  outside  of 
2 


18  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

a  book,  and  disdains  to  open  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 
changes  made  hardly  extended  beyond  the  correction 
of  some  points  of  punctuation  and  of  some  grammatical 
forms ;  it  was  in  a  few  instances  only  that  the  construc 
tion  of  the  sentences -underwent  transformation.  Not 
an  incident  was  altered,  not  a  sentiment  modified. 

Such  ignorance  on  the  part  of  a  contemporary  and 
personal  friend,  if  it  proves  nothing  else,  shows  cer 
tainly  the  little  hold  this  novel  has  had  upon  the  public 
taste.  Nevertheless,  the  first  work  of  any  well-known 
author  must  always  have  a  certain  interest  belonging  to 
it,  entirely  independent  of  any  value  the  work  may 
have  in  itself.  In  this  case,  moreover,  the  character  of 
the  tale  and  the  circumstances  attending  its  production 
are  of  no  slight  importance,  when  taken  in  connection 
with  the  literary  history  of  the  times.  It  was  accident 
that  led  to  the  selection  of  the  subject ;  but  as  things 
then  were,  Cooper  was  not  unlikely,  in  any  event,  to 
have  chosen  it  or  one  very  similar.  The  intellectual 
dependence  of  America  upon  England  at  that  period  is 
something  that  it  is  now  hard  to  understand.  Political 
supremacy  had  been  cast  off,  but  the  supremacy  of  opin 
ion  remained  absolutely  unshaken.  Of  creative  liter 
ature  there  was  then  very  little  of  any  value  produced : 
and  to  that  little  a  foreign  stamp  was  necessary,  to  give 
currency  outside  of  the  petty  circle  in  which  it  origi 
nated.  There  was  slight  encouragement  for  the  author 
to  write  ;  there  was  still  less  for  the  publisher  to  print. 
It  was  indeed  a  positive  injury  ordinarily  to  the  com 
mercial  credit  of  a  bookseller  to  bring  out  a  volume  of 
poetry  or  of  prose  fiction  which  had  been  written  by  an 
American  ;  for  it  was  almost  certain  to  fail  to  pay  ex 
penses.  A  sort  of  critical  literature  was  struggling,  or 


ENTRANCE  UPON  A  LITERARY  LIFE.  19 

rather  gasping,  for  a  life  that  was  hardly  worth  living  j 
for  its  most  marked  characteristic  was  its  servile  def 
erence  to  English  judgment  and  dread  of  English 
censure.  It  requires  a  painful  and  penitential  examina 
tion  of  the  reviews  of  the  period  to  comprehend  the 
utter  abasement  of  mind  with  which  the  men  of  that 
day  accepted  the  foreign  estimate  upon  works  written 
here,  which  had  been  read  by  themselves,  but  which  it 
was  clear  had  not  been  read  by  the  critics  whose  opin 
ions  they  echoed.  Even  the  meekness  with  which 
they  submitted  to  the  most  depreciatory  estimate  of 
themselves  was  outdone  by  the  anxiety  with  which 
they  hurried  to  assure  the  world  that  they,  the  most 
cultivated  of  the  American  race,  did  not  presume  to 
have  so  high  an  opinion  of  the  writings  of  some  one  of 
their  countrymen  as  had  been  expressed  by  enthusiasts, 
whose  patriotism  had  proved  too  much  for  their  discern 
ment.  Never  was  any  class  so  eager  to  free  itself  from 
charges  that  imputed  to  it  the  presumption  of  holding 
independent  views  of  its  own.  Out  of  the  intellectual 
character  of  many  of  those  who  at  that  day  pretended 
to  be  the  representatives  of  the  highest  education  in 
this  country,  it  almost  seemed  that  the  element  of  man 
liness  had  been  wholly  eliminated ;  and  that  along  with 
its  sturdy  democracy,  whom  no  obstacles  thwarted  and 
no  dangers  daunted,  the  New  World  was  also  to  give 
birth  to  a  race  of  literary  cowards  and  parasites.  With 
such  a  state  of  feeling  prevalent,  a  work  of  fiction  that 
concerned  America  might  seem  to  have  small  chance 
of  success  with  Americans  themselves.  It  would  not, 
therefore,  have  been  strange,  under  any  circumstances, 
that  in  beginning  his  career  as  an  author  Cooper  should 
have  chosen  to  write  a  tale  of  English  social  life.  The 


20  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

fact  that  he  knew  personally  nothing  about  what  he  was 
describing  was  in  itself  no  insuperable  objection.  That 
ignorance  was  then  and  has  since  been  shared  by  many 
novelists  on  both  sides  of  the  water,  who  have  treated  of 
the  same  subject.  Relying  upon  English  precedent,  he 
might  in  fact  feel  that  he  was  peculiarly  fitted  for  the 
task.  He  had  cruised  a  few  times  up  and  down  the  Brit 
ish  channel,  he  had  caught  limited  views  of  British  man 
ners  and  customs  by  walking  on  several  occasions  the 
length  of  Fleet  Street  and  the  Strand.  Knowledge  of 
America  equivalent  to  this  would  then  have  been  re 
garded  in  England  as  an  ample  equipment  for  an  accu 
rate  treatise  upon  the  social  life  of  this  country,  and  even 
upon  its  existing  political  condition  and  probable  future. 
But  much  more  than  the  choice  of  a  foreign  subject 
did  the  pretense  of  foreign  authorship  prove  the  servil 
ity  of  feeling  prevailing  at  that  time  among  the  edu 
cated  classes.  This  was  in  the  first  place,  to  be  sure,  the 
result  of  the  freak  that  led  Cooper  originally  to  begin 
writing  a  novel ;  but  it  was  a  freak  that  would  never 
have  been  carried  out,  after  publication  had  been  de 
cided  upon,  had  he  not  been  fully  aware  of  the  fact 
that  the  least  recommendation  of  a  book  to  his  country 
men  would  be  the  knowledge  that  it  was  composed  by 
one  of  themselves.  "  Precaution  "  was  not  merely  a  tale 
of  English  social  life,  it "purpmi'Ted  to  be  written  bv-  an 
Englishman ;  and  it  was  so  thoroughly  conformed  to  its 
imaginary  model  that  it  not  only  reechoed  the  cant  of 
English  expression,  but  likewise  the  expression  of  Eng 
lish  cant.  To  talk  about  dissenters  and  the  establish 
ment  was  natural  and  proper  enough  in  a  work  written 
ostensibly  by  the  citizen  of  a  country  in  which  there 
was  a  state  church.  But  Cooper  went  much  farther 


ENTRANCE   UPON  A  LITERARY  LIFE.  21 

than  this  in  the  reflections  and  moral  observations 
which  are  scattered  up  and  down  the  pages  of  this 
novel.  These  represent  fairly  views  widely  held  at  the 
time  in  America,  and  may  not  impossibly  express  the 
personal  opinions  he  himself  then  entertained.  He 
speaks  in  one  place,  in  his  assumed  character  of  an  Eng 
lishman,  of  the  solidity  and  purity  of  our  ethics  as  giv 
ing  a  superior  tone  to  our  moral  feelings  as  contrasted 
with  the  French.  He  goes  out  of  his  way  to  compli 
ment  George  III.  One  of  the  personages  in  the  novel 
was  tempted  to  admit  something  to  his  credit  that  he  did 
not  deserve.  The  love  of  truth,  however,  finally  pre 
vailed.  But  it  was  not  because  the  man  himself  had 
any  innate  love  of  truth,  but  because  "  he  had  been 
too  much  round  the  person  of  our  beloved  monarch  not 
to  retain  all  the  impressions  of  his  youth."  Passages 
such  as  these  are  remarkable  when  we  consider  the  senti 
ments  in  regard  to  England  that  Cooper  subsequently 
came  to  express.  If  they  do  not  show  with  certainty 
his  opinions  at  that  time,  they  do  show  the  school  in 
which  he  had  been  brought  up  :  they  mark  clearly  the 
extent  and  violence  of  the  reaction  which  in  after  years 
carried  him  to  the  opposite  extreme. 

In  its  plan  and  development  "  Precaution "  was  a 
compromise  between  the  purely  fashionable  novel  and 
that  collection  of  moral  disquisitions  of  which  Hannah 
More's  Coelebs  was  the  great  exemplar,  and  still  re 
mained  the  most  popular  representative.  As  in  most 
tales  of  high  life,  nobody  of  low  condition  plays  a  prom 
inent  part  in  the  story,  save  for  the  purpose  of  setting 
off  the  dukes,  earls,  baronets,  generals,  and  colonels 
that  throng  its  pages.  A  novelist  in  his  first  production 
never  limits «his  creative  activity  in  any  respect;  and 


22  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

Cooper,  moreover,  knew  the  public  well  enough  to  be 
aware  that  a  fictitious  narrative  which  aimed  to  describe 
aristocratic  society  might  perhaps  succeed  without  much 
literary  merit,  but  would  be  certain  to  fail  without  an 
abundance  of  lords.  The  leading  characters,  however, 
whether  of  higher  or  lower  degree,  are  planned  upon  the 
moral  model.  They  either  preach  or  furnish  awful  exam 
ples.  It  would  certainly  be  most  unfair  to  an  author  to 
judge  him,  as  in  this  case,  by  a  work  which  he  had  begun 
without  any  view  to  publication,  and  which  he  after 
ward  learned  to  think  and  to  speak  of  slightingly.  Still, 
though,  compared  with  many  of  his  writings,  "  Precau 
tion  "  is  a  novel  of  little  worth,  it  is,  in  some  respects,  a 
better  guide  to  the  knowledge  of  the  man  than  his  bet 
ter  productions.  The  latter  give  evidence  of  his  pow 
ers  ;  in  this  are  shown  certain  limitations  of  his  nature 
and  beliefs.  Peculiarities,  both  of  thought  and  feeling, 
which  in  his  other  writings  are  merely  suggested,  are 
here  clearly  revealed.  Some  of  them  will  appear 
strange  to  those  whose  conception  of  his  character  is 
derived  from  facts  connected  with  his  later  life,  or 
whose  acquaintance  with  his  works  is  limited  to  those 
most  celebrated. 

Cooper  was,  by  nature,  a  man  of  deep  religious  feel 
ing.  This  disposition  had  been  strengthened  by  his 
training.  But  there  is  something  more  than  deep  relig 
ious  feeling  exhibited  in  his  first  novel.  There  runs 
through  it  a  vein  of  pietistic  narrowness,  which  seem.s 
particularly  unsuited  to  the  man  whom  popular  imag 
ination,  investing  him  somewhat  with  the  characteristics 
of  his  own  creations,  has  depicted  as  a  ranger  of  the  for 
ests  and  a  rover  of  the  seas.  Yet  the  existence  of  this 
vein  is  plainly  apparent,  though  all  his»  surroundings 


ENTRANCE   UPON  A  LITERARY  LIFE.  23 

% 

would  seem  to  have  been  unfavorable  to  its  birth  and 
development.  He  shared,  to  its  fullest  extent,  in  the 
jealousy  which  at  that  time,  far  more  than  now,  pre 
vailed  between  the  Middle  States  and  New  England. 
He  was  strongly  attached  to  the  Episcopal  Church,  and 
he  had,  or  fancied  he  had,  a  keen  dislike  to  the  Puritans 
and  their  manners  and  creeds.  To  these  "  religionists," 
as  he  was  wont  to  call  them,  he  attributed  a  great  deal 
that  was  ungraceful  in  American  life,  and  a  good  deal 
that  was  disgraceful.  But  the  Puritan  element  is  an  ir 
repressible  and  undying  one  in  English  character.  It 
can  be  found  centuries  before  it  became  the  designation 
of  a  religious  body.  It  can  be  traced,  under  various  and 
varying  appellations,  through  every  period  of  English 
history.  It  is  not  the  name  of  a  sect,  it  is  not  the  mark 
of  a  creed  ;  it  is  the  characteristic  of  a  race.  It  is, 
therefore,  never  long  put  under  ban  before  it  comes 
back,  and  takes  its  turn  in  ruling  manners  and  society. 
The  revolt  against  it  in  the  eighteenth  century  had 
stripped  from  religion  everything  in  the  shape  of  senti 
ment,  and  left  it  merely  a  business.  The  reaction  which 
brought  the  Puritan  element  again  to  the  front  was  so 
intensified  by  hostility  to  what  were  called  French  prin 
ciples  that  the  minor  literature  of  the  latter  half  of  the 
reign  of  George  III.  exhibits  a  cant  of  intolerance 
from  which  many  of  its  greatest  writers  were  rarely 
great  enough  to  be  wholly  free.  This  influence  is 
clearly  visible  in  the  earliest  work  of  Cooper.  There  is 
no  charge,  probably,  he  would  have  denied  sooner  or 
disliked  more,  but  in  his  nature  he  was  essentially  a  Pu 
ritan  of  the  Puritans.  Their  faults  and  their  virtues, 
their  inconsistencies  and  their  contradictions,  were  his. 
Their  earnestness,  their  intensity,  their  narrowness,  their 


24  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE   COOPER. 

intolerance,  their  pugnacity,  their  serious  way  of  look 
ing  at  human  duties  and  responsibilities,  all  these  ele 
ments  corresponded  with  elements  in  his  own  character. 
His,  also,  were  their  lofty  ideas  of  personal  purity  and 
of  personal  obligation,  extending  not  merely  to  the  acts 
of  the  life,  but  to  the  thoughts  of  the  heart.  Like  them, 
moreover,  he  was  always  disposed  to  appeal  directly  to 
the  authority  of  the  Supreme  Being.  Like  them,  he  had 
perfect  confidence  in  the  absolute  knowledge  he  pos 
sessed  of  what  that  Being  thought  and  wished.  Like 
them,  he  considered  any  controverted  question  as  settled, 
if  he  could  once  bring  to  bear  upon  the  point  in  dispute 
a  text  beginning,  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  No  rational 
creature,  certainly,  would  think  of  contesting  a  view  of 
the  Creator,  or  acting  contrary  to  a  command  coming 
unmistakably  from  Him.  But  at  this  very  point  the  dif 
ficulty  begins  ;  and  in  nothing  did  Cooper  more  resemble 
the  Puritans  than  in  his  incapacity  to  see  that  there  was 
any  difficulty  at  all.  It  never  occurred  to  him  that  there 
might  possibly  be  a  vast  difference  between  what  the 
Lord  actually  said  and  what  James  Fenirnore  Cooper 
thought  the  Lord  said.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add, 
however,  that  this  characteristic  of  mind  has  its  advan 
tages  as  well  as  disadvantages. 

It  was  not  unnatural,  accordingly,  that  "  Precaution  " 
should  exemplify  in  many  cases  that  narrowness  of 
view  which  seeks  to  shape  narrow  rules  for  the  conduct 
of  life.  For  its  sympathy  with  this,  one  of  the  most 
distinguishing  and  disagreeable  features  of  Puritanism, 
the  novel  has  an  interest  which  could  never  be  aroused 
by  it  as  a  work  of  art.  Extreme  sentiments  are  often 
expressed  by  the  author  in  his  own  person,  though  they 
are  usually  put  into  the  mouths  of  various  actors  in  the 


ENTRANCE    UPON  A  LITERARY  LIFE.  25 

story.  Their  especial  representative  is  a  certain  Mrs. 
Wilson,  who  was  clearly  a  great  favorite  of  her  creator, 
though  to  the  immense  majority  of  men  she  would 
seem  as  disagreeably  strong-minded  as  most  of  Cooper's 
female  characters  are  disagreeably  weak-minded.  This 
lady  is  the  widow  of  a  general  officer,  who,  the  reader 
comes  heartily  to  feel,  has,  most  fortunately  for  himself, 
fallen  in  the  Peninsular  war.  From  her  supreme  height 
of  morality  she  sweeps  the  whole  horizon  of  human 
frailties  and  faults,  and  looks  down  with  a  relentless 
eye  upon  the  misguided  creatures  who  are  struggling 
with  temptations  to  which  she  is  superior,  or  are  under 
the  sway  of  beliefs  whose  folly  or  falsity  she  has  long 
since  penetrated.  In  her,  indeed,  there  is  no  weak  com 
promise  with  human  feelings.  The  lesson  meant  to  be 
taught  by  the  novel  is  the  necessity  of  taking  precaution 
in  regard  to  marriage.  One  point  insisted  upon  again 
and  again  is  the  requirement  of  piety  in  the  husband. 
It  is  the  duty  of  a  Christian  mother  to  guard  against 
a  connection  with  any  one  but  a  Christian  for  her  daugh 
ters  :  for  throughout  the  whole  work  the  sovereign 
right  of  the  parent  over  the  child  is  not  merely  implied, 
it  is  directly  asserted.  "  No  really  pious  woman,"  says 
Mrs.  Wilson,  "  can  be  happy  unless  her  husband  is  in 
what  she  deems  the  road  to  future  happiness  herself." 
When  she  is  met  by  the  remark  that  the  carrying  out 
of  this  idea  would  give  a  deadly  blow  to  matrimony,  she 
rises  to  the  occasion  by  replying  that  "  no  man  who  dis 
passionately  examines  the  subject  will  be  other  than 
a  Christian,  arid  rather  than  remain  bachelors  they 
would  take  even  that  trouble."  Nor  in  this  was  the 
author  apparently  expressing  an  opinion  which  he  did 
not  himself  hold  in  theory,  however  little  he  might  have 


26  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

regarded  it  in  practice.  He  takes  up  the  same  subject 
in  another  place,  when  speaking  in  his  own  person. 
"  Would  our  daughters,"  he  says,  "  admire  a  handsome 
deist,  if  properly  impressed  with  the  horror  of  his  doc 
trines,  sooner  than  they  would  now  admire  a  handsome 
Mohammedan  ?  "  On  the  matter  of  Sunday  observance 
the  narrowest  tenets  of  Puritanism  were  preached,  and 
the  usual  ignorance  was  manifested  that  there  were  two 
sides  to  the  question.  Some  of  the  incidents  connected 
with  this  subject  are  curious.  One  of  the  better  char 
acters  in  the  novel  asks  his  wife  to  ride  out  on  that  day, 
and  she  reluctantly  consents.  This  brings  at  once  upon 
the  stage  the  inevitable  Mrs.  Wilson,  who  always  stands 
ready  to  point  a  moral,  though  she  can  hardly  be  said 
to  adorn  the  tale.  She  draws  from  the  transaction  the 
lesson  that  it  is  a  warning  against  marrying  a  person 
with  a  difference  of  views.  In  this  particular  instance 
the  respect  of  the  man  for  religion  had  been  injurious 
to  his  wife,  because  "  had  he  been  an  open  deist,  she 
would  have  shrunk  from  the  act  in  his  company  on  sus 
picion  of  its  sinfuluess."  It  is  justice  to  add  that  many 
of  these  extreme  opinions,  at  least  in  the  extreme  form 
stated  in  this  work,  the  author  came  finally  to  outgrow 
if  in  fact  he  held  them  seriously  then. 

There  are  certain  other  peculiarities  of  Cooper's  be 
liefs  that  "  Precaution  "  exemplifies.  He  has  been  con 
stantly  criticised  for  the  unvarying  and  uninteresting 
uniformity  of  his  female  characters.  This  is  hardly 
just ;  but  it  is  just  in  the  sense  that  there  was  only  one 
type  which  he  ever  held  up  to  admiration.  Others 
were  introduced,  but  they  were  never  the  kind  of  women 
whom  he  delighted  to  honor.  Of  female  purity  he  had 
the  highest  ideal.  Deference  for  the  female  sex  as  a 


\ 

ENTRANCE   UPON  A  LITERARY  LIFE.  27 

sex  he  felt  sincerely  and  expressed  strongly.  Along 
with  this  he  seemed  to  have  the  most  contemptible 
opinion  of  the  ability  of  the  female  individual  to  take 
care  of  herself.  On  the  other  hand,  if  she  had  the 
requisite  ability,  the  greater  became  his  contempt ;  for 
helplessness,  in  his  eyes,  was  apparently  her  chiefest 
charm.  The  Emily  Moseley  of  his  first  novel  is  the 
prototype  of  a  long  line  of  heroines,  whose  combination 
of  propriety  and  incapacity  places  them  at  the  farthest 
possible  remove  from  the  heroic.  She  is  worthy  of 
special  mention  here,  only  because  in  this  novel  he  de 
scribes  in  detail  the  desirable  qualities,  which  in  the 
others  are  simply  implied.  lie  furnishes  us,  moreover, 
with  the  precise  training  to  which  she  had  been  sub 
jected  by  her  aunt,  Mrs.  Wilson.  Accordingly,  we 
learn  both  what,  in  Cooper's  eyes,  it  was  incumbent  for 
a  woman  to  be,  and  what  she  ought  to  go  through  in 
order  to  be  that  woman.  A  few  sentences  taken  at  ran 
dom  will  show  the  character  of  this  heroine.  She  was 
artless,  but  intelligent;  she  was  cheerful,  but  pious; 
she  was  familiar  with  all  the  attainments  suitable  to  her 
sex  and  years.  Her  time  was  dedicated  to  work  which 
had' a  tendency  to  qualify  her  for  the  duties  of  this  life 
and  fit  her  for  the  life  hereafter.  She  seldom  opened  a 
book  unless  in  search  of  information.  She  never  read 
one  that  contained  a  sentiment  dangerous  to  her  morals, 
or  inculcated  an  opinion  improper  for  her  sex.  She 
never  permitted  a  gentleman  to  ride  with  her,  to  walk 
with  her,  to  hold  with  her  a  tete-a-tete.  !Nor  was  this 
result  achieved  with  difficulty.  Though  she  was  natural 
and  unaffected,  the  simple  dignity  about  her  was  suffi 
cient  to  forbid  any  such  request,  or  even  any  such 
thought  in  the  men  who  had  the  pleasure,  or,  as  the 


£8  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

reader  may  think,  the  grief,  of  her  acquaintance.  In 
short,  she  was  not  merely  propriety  personified  ;  she 
was  propriety  magnified  and  intensified.  This  particular 
heroine,  who  could  not  consistently  have  read  the  book 
in  which  her  own  conduct  is  described,  finally  disappears 
as  the  wife  of  an  equally  remarkable  earl.  Her  story, 
as  it  is  told,  however,  strikingly  exemplifies  the  careless- 
|ness  in  working  up  details  which  is  one  of  Cooper's 
marked  defects.  The  novel  received  its  name,  as  has 
already  been  implied,  because  it  aimed  to  set  forth  the 
desirability  of  precaution  in  the  choice  of  husband  or 
wife.  What  it  actually  taught,  however,  was  its  unde- 
sirability.  The  misunderstandings,  the  crosses,  the  dis 
tresses,  to  which  the  lovers  were  subjected  in  the  tale 
all  sprang  from  excess  of  care,  and  not  from  lack  of  it ; 
from  exercising  precaution  where  precaution  did  nothing 
but  harm. 

The  work  excited  but  little  attention  in  this  country. 
In  the  following  year  it  was  printed  in  England  by  Col- 
burn,  and  was  there  noticed  without  the  slightest  suspi 
cion  of  its  American  authorship.  In  some  quarters  it 
received  fairly  favorable  mention.  It  could  not  be  hid, 
however,  that  the  novel,  as  regarded  the  general  public, 
had  been  a  failure.  Still,  it  was  not  so  much  a  failure 
that  the  author's  friends  did  not  think  well  of  it  and  see 
promise  in  it.  They  urged  him  to  renewed  exertions. 
He  had  tried  the  experiment  of  depicting  scenes  he  had 
never  witnessed,  and  a  life  he  had  never  led.  He  had, 
in  their  opinion,  succeeded  fairly  well  in  describing 
what  he  knew  nothing  about ;  they  were  anxious  that 
he  should  try  his  hand  at  the  representation  of  manners 
and  men  of  which  and  whom  he  knew  something.  Es 
pecially  was  it  made  a  matter  of  reproach  that  he,  in 


ENTRANCE   UPON  A  LITERARY  LIFE.  29 

heart  and  soul  an  American  of  the  Americans,  should 
have  gone  to  a  foreign  land  to  fill  the  imagination  of  his 
countrymen  with  pictures  of  a  social  state  alien  both  in 
feeling  and  fact  to  their  own.  This  was  an  appeal  of  a 
kind  that  was  certain  to  touch  Cooper  sensibly ;  for  with 
him  love  of  country  was  not  a  sentiment,  it  was  a  pas 
sion.  As  a  sort  of  atonement,  therefore,  for  his  first 
work,  he  determined  to  inflict,  as  he  phrased  it,  a  sec 
ond  one  upon  the  world.  Against  this  there  should  be 
no  objection*  on  the  score  of  patriotism.  He  naturally 
turned  for  his  subject  to  the  Revolution,  with  the  details 
of  which  he  was  familiar  by  his  acquaintance  with  the 
men  who  had  shared  prominently  in  its  conduct,  and  had 
felt  all  the  keenness  of  a  personal  triumph  in  its  suc 
cess.  The  very  county,  moreover,  in  which  he  had 
made  his  home  was  full  of  recollections.  "Westchester 
had  been  the  neutral  ground  between  the  English  forces 
stationed  in  New  York  and  the  American  army  en 
camped  in  the  highlands  of  the  Hudson.  Upon  it  more, 
perhaps,  than  upon  any  other  portion  of  the  soil  of  the 
revolted  colonies  had  fallen  the  curse  of  war  in  its  heav 
iest  form.  Back  and  forth  over  a  large  part  of  it  had 
perpetually  ebbed  and  flowed  the  tide  of  battle.  Not  a 
road  was  there  which  had  not  been  swept  again  and 
again  by  columns  of  infantry  or  squadrons  of  horse. 
Every  thicket  had  been  the  hiding-place  of  refugees  or 
spies  ;  every  wood  or  meadow  had  been  the  scene  of  a 
skirmish ;  and  every  house  that  had  survived  the  strug 
gle  had  its  tale  to  tell  of  thrilling  scenes  that  had  taken 
place  within  its  walls.  These  circumstances  determined 
Cooper's  choice  of  the  place  and  period.  Years  before, 
while  at  the  residence  of  John  Jay,  his  host  had  given 
him,  one  summer  afternoon,  the  account  of  a  spy  that 


30  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

had  been  in  his  service  during  the  war.  The  coolness, 
shrewdness,  fearlessness,  but  above  all  the  unselfish 
patriotism,  of  the  man  had  profoundly  impressed  the 
Revolutionary  leader  who  had  employed  him.  The 
story  made  an  equally  deep  impression  upon  Cooper  at 
the  time.  He  now  resolved  to  take  it  as  the  foundation 
of  the  tale  he  had  been  persuaded  to  write.  The  result 
was  that  on  the  22d  of  December,  1821,  the  novel  of 
"  The  Spy  "  was  quietly  advertised  in  the  New  York 
papers  as  on  that  day  published.  • 

The  reader,  however,  would  receive  a  very  wrong 
idea  of  the  feelings  with  which  the  author  began  and 
ended  this  work  of  fiction,  should  he  stop  short  with  the 
account  that  has  just  been  given.  The  circumstances 
attending  its  composition  and  publication  are,  as  a  mat 
ter  of  fact,  almost  as  remarkable  as  the  story  itself. 
They  certainly  present  a  most  suggestive  picture  of  the 
literary  state  of  America  at  that  time.  Cooper,  for  his 
part,  had  not  the  slightest  anticipation  of  the  effect  that 
it  was  going  to  have  upon  his  future.  In  writing  it  he 
was  carrying  out  the  wishes  of  his  friends  full  as  much 
as  his  own.  Nor,  apparently,  did  they  urge  the  course 
upon  him  because  they  conceived  him  capable  of  accom 
plishing  anything  very  great  or  even  very  good.  They 
felt  that  he  could  produce  something  that  was  not  dis 
creditable,  and  that  was  all  that  could  reasonably  be 
expected  of  an  American.  There  was  no  other  novelist 
in  the  field.  Charles  Brockden  Brown  had  been  dead 
several  years.  Irving  and  Paulding  were  writing  only 
short  sketches.  John  Neal,  indeed,  in  addition  to  the 
poems,  tragedies,  reviews,  newspaper  articles,  indexes, 
and  histories  he  was  turning  out  by  wholesale,  had  like 
wise  perpetrated  a  novel ;  but  it  was  never  known 


ENTRANCE    UPON  A  LITERARY  LIFE.  31 

enough  to  justify  the  mention  of  it  as  having  been  for 
gotten.  Here,  consequently,  was  a  vacant  place  that 
ought  to  be  filled.  Cooper  was  never  the  man  who 
would  be  eager  to  take  a  place  because  there  was  no 
one  else  to  occupy  it ;  and  the  way  he  went  at  the  task 
he  had  undertaken  gives  indirectly  a  clear  insight  into 
an  American  author's  feelings  sixty  years  ago.  He  en 
tered  upon  the  work  not  merely  without  the  expectation 
of  success,  but  almost  without  the  hope  of  it.  The 
novel  was  written  very  hastily ;  the  sheets  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  type-setter  with  scarcely  a  correction  ; 
and  so  little  heart  had  he  in  the  task  that  the  first  vol 
ume  was  printed  several  months  before  he  felt  any  in 
ducement  to  write  a  line  of  the  second.  The  propriety 
of  abandoning  it  entirely,  under  the  apprehension  of 
its  proving  a  serious  loss,  was  debated.  "  Should 
chance,"  he  said,  in  a  later  introduction  to  the  Jbook, 
"  throw  a  copy  of  this  prefatory  notice  into  the  hands 
of  an  American  twenty  years  hence,  he  will  smile  to 
think  that  a  countryman  hesitated  to  complete  a  work 
so  far  advanced,  merely  because  the  disposition  of  the 
country  to  read  a  book  that  treated  of  its  own  familiar 
interests  was  distrusted."  In  this  respect  the  difficulty 
of  his  position  was  made  more  prominent  by  its  contrast 
with  that  of  the  great  novelist  who  was  then  occupying 
the  attention  of  the  English-speaking  world.  Scott,  in 
writing  "  Waverley,"  could  take  for  granted  that  there 
lay  behind  him  an  intense  feeling  of  nationality,  which 
would  show  itself  not  in  noisy  boastfulness,  but  in  gen 
uine  appreciation  ;  that  with  the  matter  of  his  work  his 
countrymen  would  sympathize,  whatever  might  be  their 
opinion  as  to  its  execution.  No  such  supposition  could 
be  made  by  Cooper ;  no  such  belief  inspired  him  to  ex- 


32         JAMES  FEN IM ORE  COOPER. 

ertion.  He  might  hope  to  create  interest ;  he  could  not 
venture  to  assume  its  existence.  One  other  incident 
connected  with  the  composition  of  this  work  marks  even 
more  plainly  the  almost  despairing  attitude  of  his  mind. 
While  the  second  volume  was  slowly  printing,  he  re 
ceived  an  intimation  from  his  publisher  that  the  work 
might  grow  to  a  length  that  would  endanger  the  profits. 
The  author  hereupon  adopted  a  course  which  is  itself  a 
proof  of  how  much  stranger  is  fact  than  fiction.  To 
placate  the  publisher  and  set  his  mind  at  rest,  the  last 
chapter  was  written,  printed,  and  paged,  not  merely  be 
fore  the  intervening  chapters  had  been  composed,  but 
before  they  had  been  fully  conceived.  It  was  fair  to 
expect  failure  for  a  work  which  no  bookseller  had  been 
found  willing  to  undertake  at  his  own  risk,  and  which 
the  author  himself  set  about  in  a  manner  so  perfunc 
tory.^  The  indifference  and  carelessness  displayed,  he 
said  afterward,  were  disrespectful  to  the  public  and  un 
just  to  himself ;  yet  they  give,  as  nothing  else  could, 
a  vivid  picture  of  the  literary  situation  in  America  at 
that  time. 

The    reluctance    and    half-heartedness   with    which 
Cooper  began  and  completed  this  work  stand,  indeed,  in 
sharpest  contrast  to  the  existing  state  of  feeling,  when 
it  is  only  the  prayers  of  friends  and  the  tears  of  rela 
tives  that  can  prevent  most  of  us  from  publishing  some 
novel  we  have  already  written.     But  almost  as  it  were 
by  accident  he  had  struck  into  the  vein  best  fitted  for 
the  display  of  his  natural  powers.     In  it  he  succeeded 
with  little  effort,  where  other  men  with  the   greatest 
,    effort  might  have  failed.     The  delicate  distinctions  that 
\  underlie  character  where  social  pressure  has  given  to 
\  all  the  same  outside,  it  was  not  his  to  depict.     Still  less 


ENTRANCE   UPON  A  LITERARY  LIFE.  33 

could  he  unfold  the  subtle  workings  of  motives  that  often 
elude  the  observation  of  the  very  persons  whom  they 
most  influence.  Such  a  power  is  essential  to  the  suc 
cess  of  him  who  seeks  to  delineate  men  as  seen  in  con 
ventional  society  ;  and  largely  for  the  lack  of  it  his 
first  novel  had  been  a  failure.  It  was  only  at  rare  in 
tervals,  also,  that  he  showed  that  precision  of  style  and 
pointed  method  of  statement  which,  independent  of  the 
subject,  interest  the  reader  in  men  and  things  that  are 
not  in  themselves  interesting.  It  was  the  story  of  ad 
venture,  using  adventure  in  its  broadest  sense,  that  he 
was  fitted  to  tell  :  and  fortunately  for  him  Walter  Scott, 
then  in  the  very  height  of  his  popularity,  had  made  it 
supremely  fashionable.  In  this  it  is  only  needful  to 
draw  character  in  bold  outlines  ;  to  represent  men  not 
under  the  influence  of  motives  that  hold  sway  in  arti 
ficial  and  complex  society,  but  as  breathed  upon  by  those 
common  airs  of  reflection  and  swept  hither  and  thither  by 
those  common  gales  of  passion  that  operate  upon  us  all 
as  members  of  the  race.  It  is  not  the  personality  of 
the  actors  to  which  the  attention  is  supremely  drawn, 
though  even  in  that  there  is  ample  field  for  the  exhibi 
tion  of  striking  characterization.  It  is  the  events  that 
carry  us  along  ;  it  is  the  catastrophe  to  which  they  are 
hurrying  that  excites  the  feelings  and  absorbs  the 
thoughts.  There  can  be  no  greater  absurdity  than  to 
speak  of  this  kind  of  story,  as  is  sometimes  done,  as  be 
ing  inferior  in  itself  to  those  devoted  exclusively  to  the 
delineation  of  manners  or  character,  or  even  of  the 
subtler  motives  which  act  upon  the  heart  and  life.  As 
well  might  one  say  that  the  "  Iliad  "  is  a  poem  of  inferior 
type  to  the  "  Excursion."  Again,  it  is  only  those  who 
think  it  must  be  easy  to  write  what  it  is  easy  to  read 
3 


34  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

who  will  fall  into  the  mistake  of  fancying  that  a  novel 
of  adventure  which  has  vitality  enough  to  live  does  not 
owe  its  existence  to  the  arduous,  though  it  may  be 
largely  unconscious,  exercise  of  high  creative  power.  No 
better  correction  for  this  error  can  be  found  than  in 
looking  over  the  names  of  the  countless  imitators  of 
Scott,  some  of  them  distinguished  in  other  fields,  who 
have  made  so  signal  a  failure  that  even  the  very  fact 
that  they  attempted  to  imitate  him  at  all  has  been  wholly 
forgotten. 

"  The  Spy  "  appeared  almost  at  the  very  close  of  1821. 
It  was  not  long  before  its  success  was  assured.  Early 
in  1822  the  newspapers  were  able  to  assert  that  it  had 
met  with  a  sale  unprecedented  in  the  annals  of  Ameri 
can  literature.  What  that  phrase  meant  is  partly  in 
dicated  by  the  fact  that  it  had  then  been  found  nec 
essary  to  publish  a  second  edition.  In  March  a  third 
edition  was  put  to  the  press ;  and  in  the  same  month 
the  story  was  dramatized  and  acted  with  the  greatest 
success.  Still  in  the  abject  dependence  upon  foreign 
estimate  which  was  the  preeminent  characteristic  of  a 
large  portion  of  the  educated  class  of  that  day.  many  felt 
constrained  to  wait  for  the  judgment  that  would  come 
back  from  Europe  before  they  could  venture  to  ex 
press  an  opinion  which  they  had  the  presumption  to  call 
their  own.  Contemporary  newspapers  more  than  once 
mention  the  relief  that  was  afforded  to  many  when 
Cooper  was  spoken  of  in  several  of  the  English  jour 
nals  as  "  a  distinguished  American  novelist."  This,  it 
has  been  implied,  was  then  a  condition  of  the  public 
mind  that  no  writer  could  dare  wholly  to  disregard. 
When  the  project  of  abandoning  thi»  novel,  already  half 
printed,  was  under  discussion,  the  principal  reason  that 


ENTRANCE   UPON  A  LITERARY  LIFE.  35 

finally  decided  the  author  to  persevere  was  the  fact  that 
his  previous  work  had  received  a  respectful  notice  in 
a  few  English  periodicals.  It  was  thought,  in  conse 
quence,  that  in  his  new  venture  he  would  be  secure 
from  loss.  Still,  it  is  due  to  his  countrymen  to  say  that 
it  was  to  them  alone  he  owed  his  first  success.  In  later 
years  the  declaration  was  often  made  that  he  would 
never  have  been  held  in  honor  at  home,  had  it  not  been 
for  foreign  approbation.  The  assertion  he  himself  in 
dignantly  denied.  "  This  work,"  he  said  afterward,  in 
speaking  of  "  The  Spy,"  "  most  of  you  received  with  a 
generous  welcome  that  might  have  satisfied  any  one 
that  the  heart  of  this  great  community  is  sound."  Cer 
tain  it  is  that  the  success  of  the  novel  was  assured  in 
America  some  time  before  the  character  of  its  reception 
in  Europe  was  known. 

The  printed  volume  was  offered  to  the  London 
publisher  Murray,  and  for  terms  he  was  referred  to 
Irving,  who  was  then  in  England.  Murray  gave  the 
novel  for  examination  to  Gifford,  the  editor  of  the 
"  Quarterly."  By  his  advice  it  was  declined,  —  a  result 
that  might  easily  have  been  foretold  from  the  hostility 
of  the  man  to  this  country.  He  had  made  his  review 
an  organ  of  the  most  persistent  depreciation  and  abuse 
of  America  and  everything  American.  A  new  writer 
from  this  side  of  the  ocean  was  little  likely  to  meet  with 
any  favor  in  his  sight,  especially  when  his  subject  was 
one  that  from  its  very  nature  could  not  be  flattering  to 
British  prejudices.  Murray  having  refused,  another 
publisher  was  found  in  Miller,  who  had  also  been  the 
first  to  bring  out  Irving's  "  Sketch  Book."  Early  in  1822 
the  work  appeared  in  England.  There  its  success  was  / 
full  as  great  as  it  had  been  in  America.  This  novel, 


36  JAMES  FEN IM ORE  COOPER. 

in  fact,  made  Cooper's  reputation  both  at  home  and 
abroad.  It  is  important  to  bear  this  in  mind,  because 
it  is  a  common  notion  that  it  was  his  delineations  of 
Indian  life  that  brought  him  his  European  fame.  They 
'-^  established  it,  but  they  did  not  originate  it.  "  The  Spy  " 
was  a  tale  of  a  war,  which  in  character  was  not  essen 
tially  different  from  any  other  war.  So  far  as  the  story 
painted  the  incidents  of  a  struggle  in  which  the  English 
had  been  unsuccessful,  it  could  have  no  right  to  expect 
favor  from  the  English  public  unless  there  was  merit  in 
the  execution  of  the  work  independent  of  the  subject. 
The  interest  with  which  it  was  read  by  a  people  who  could 
not  fail  to  find  portions  of  it  disagreeable,  who  were 
moreover  accustomed  to  look  with  contempt  upon  every 
thing  of  American  origin,  was  the  best  proof  that  a 
novelist  had  arisen  whose  reputation  would  stretch  be 
yond  the  narrow  limits  of  nationality.  This  was  even 
more  strikingly  seen,  when  it  came  to  be  translated. 
If  the  English  opinion  was  favorable,  the  French  might 
fairly  be  called  enthusiastic.  A  version  was  made  into 
that  tongue  in  the  summer  of  1822,  by  the  translator 
of  the  Waverley  Novels.  In  the  absolute  ignorance 
that  existed  as  to  its  authorship,  the  work  was  ascribed 
by  several  of  the  Parisian  papers  to  Fanny  Wright,  who 
subsequently  achieved  a  fame  of  her  own  as  a  cham 
pion  of  woman's  privileges  and  denouncer  of  woman's 
wrongs.  In  spite  of  its  anonymous  character  and  of  some 
extraordinary  blunders  in  translation,  it  was  warmly  re 
ceived  in  France.  From  that  country  its  reputation  in 
no  long  space  of  time  spread  in  every  direction ;  transla 
tions  followed  one  after  another  into  all  the  cultivated 
tongues  of  modern  Europe  ;  and  in  all  it  met  the  same 
degree  of  favor.  Nor  has  lapse  of  time  shaken  seriously 


ENTRANCE   UPON  A  LITERARY  LIFE.  37 

its  popularity.  The  career  of  success,  which  began  sixty 
years  ago,  has  suffered  vicissitudes,  but« never  suspen 
sion  ;  and  to  this  hour,  whatever  fault  may  be  found 
with  the  work  as  a  whole,  the  name  of  Harvey  Birch  is 
still  one  of  the  best  known  in  fiction.  No  tale  pro 
duced  during  the  present  century  has  probably  had  so 
extensive  a  circulation  ;  and  the  leading  character  in  it 
has  found  admirers  everywhere  and  at  times  imitators. 
Of  this  latter  statement  a  striking  illustration  is  given 
in  the  memoirs  of  Gisquet,  a  prefect  of  the  French 
police  under  Louis  Philippe.  In  his  chapter  on  the 
secret  agents  employed  by  him  during  his  administra 
tion,  he  tells  the  story  of  one  who  by  the  information  he 
imparted  rendered  important  services  in  preventing  the 
outbreak  of  civil  war.  He  thus  describes  the  motives 
which  led  the  man  to  pursue  the  course  he  did.  "  Struck 
with  the  reading,"  he  writes,  "of  one  of  Cooper's  novels 
called  '  The  Spy,'  he  aspired  to  the  sort  of  ambition 
which  distinguished  the  hero  of  that  work,  and  was  de 
sirous  of  playing  in  France  the  part  which  Cooper  has 
assigned  to  Harvey  Birch  during  the  American  war  of 
independence.  .  .  .  Harvey  Birch  —  for  he  adopted  this 
name  in  all  his  reports  —  never  belied  his  professions  of 
fidelity.  He  rendered  services  which  would  have  mer 
ited  a  competent  fortune ;  but  when  the  term  of  them 
ended,  he  contented  himself  with  asking  for  a  humble 
employment,  barely  enough  to  supply  his  daily  necessi 
ties."  The  belief  in  the  reality  of  the  hero  has,  indeed, 
been  part  of  the  singular  fortune  of  the  book.  In  his 
account  of  Nicaragua,  published  in  1852,  Mr.  E.  G. 
Squier  furnished  incidentally  interesting  testimony  to 
the  truth  of  this  statement  as  well  as  to  the  wide  circu 
lation  of  the  tale  itself.  At  La  Union,  the  port  of  San 


38  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

Miguel,  he  stayed  at  the  house  of  the  commandant  of 
the  place.  His  apartments  he  found  well  stocked  with 
books,  and  among  them  was  this  particular  novel.  "  The 
'  Espy,'  "  he  went  on  to  say,  "  of  the  lamented  Cooper, 
I  may  mention,  seems  to  be  better  known  in  Spanish 
America  than  any  other  work  in  the  English  language. 
I  found  it  everywhere ;  and  when  I  subsequently  visited 
the  Indian  pueblo  of  Conchagua,  the  first  alcalde  pro 
duced  it  from  an  obscure  corner  of  the  cabildo,  as  a 
very  great  treasure.  He  regarded  it  as  veritable  history, 
and  thought  *  Senor  Birch '  a  most  extraordinary  per 
sonage  and  a  model  guerillero." 


CHAPTER  III. 

1822-1826. 

COOPER  would  have  been  more  or  less  than  mortal  if 
the  unexpected  success  achieved  by  "  The  Spy  "  had  not 
incited  him  to  renewed  effort.  It  definitely  determined 
his  career,  though  at  the  time  he  did  not  know  it.  As 
yet  he  was  not  sure  in  his  own  mind  whether  the  favor 
his  book  had  met  was  the  result  of  a  lucky  hit  or  was 
due  to  the  display  of  actual  power.  There  can  be  no 
question  as  to  the  honesty  of  his  assertion  when  he  pub 
lished  his  third  novel,  that  it  depended  upon  certain  con 
tingencies  whether  it  would  not  be  the  last.  But  from 
this  time  on  he  wrote  incessantly.  From  1820  to  1830, 
including  both  years,  he  brought  out  eleven  works.  In 
many  respects  this  was  the  happiest  period  of  his  liter 
ary  life  as  well  as  the  most  successful.  During  it  he 
produced  many  of  his  greatest  creations.  One  decided 
failure  he  made ;  but  with  this  exception  if  each  new 
story  did  not  seem  to  exhibit  any  new  power,  it  at  least 
gave  no  sign  of  weakness,  or  misdirection  of  energy. 
This  period  is  in  fact  so  supremely  the  creative  one  of 
Cooper's  life  as  regards  the  conception  of  character  and 
scene  that  nearly  all  he  did  demands  careful  examina 
tion. 

He  first  set  about  a  task  that  lay  near  his  heart. 
This  was  to  describe  the  scenes,  the  manners  and  cus 
toms  of  his  native  land,  especially  of  the  frontier  life  in 


40  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

which  he  had  been  trained.  In  1823,  accordingly,  ap 
peared  "  The  Pioneers,"  itself  the  pioneer  of  the  five 
famous  stories,  which  now  go  collectively  under  the 
name  of  the  "  Leather-Stocking  Tales."  It  was  a  vivid 
and  faithful  picture  of  the  sights  he  had  seen  and  the 
men  he  had  met  in  the  home  of  his  childhood,  where 
as  a  boy  he  had  witnessed  the  struggles  which  attend 
the  conquest  of  man  over  nature.  In  it  appear  in  com 
paratively  rude  outlines  the  personages  whose  names 
and  exploits  his  pen  was  afterwards  to  make  famous 
throughout  the  civilized  world.  They  are  in  this  work 
of  a  far  less  lofty  type  than  in  those  which  followed. 
"  The  Pioneers,"  in  truth,  though  not  a  poor  story,  is 
much  the  poorest  of  the  series  of  which  it  forms  a  part. 
The  almost  loving  interest  he  took  in  the  matter  about 
which  he  was  writing  tempted  the  author  to  indulge 
his  recollections  at  the  expense  of  his  judgment.  His 
first  novel,  he  said  in  the  prefatory  address  to  the  pub 
lisher  which  appeared  in  this  one,  had  been  written  to 
show  that  he  could  write  a  grave  tale,  and  it  was  -so 
grave  that  no  one  would  read  it ;  the  second  was  written 
to  overcome  if  possible  the  neglect  of  the  public ;  but 
the  third  was  written  exclusively  to  please  himself. 
The  story  as  a  story  suffered  in  consequence  from  the 
very  fascination  which  the  subject  had  for  his  mind. 
So  subordinate  was  it  made,  especially  in  the  first  half, 
to  the  description  of  the  scenes,  that  the  details  at  times 
become  wearisome  and  the  interest  often  flags. 

The  expectation  with  which  the  appearance  of  this 
work  was  awaited  is  a  striking  proof  of  the  impression 
that  the  previous  novel  had  made.  It  was  to  have  been 
brought  out  as  early  as  the  autumn  of  1822.  But  dur 
ing  the  summer  of  that  year  the  yellow  fever  ravaged 


THE  PIONEERS.  41 

New  York  and  largely  broke  up  for  a  time  all  kinds  of 
business,  including  printing.  Causes  beyond  control 
still  further  delayed  the  publication,  and  it  was  not  un 
til  the  first  of  February,  1823,  that  the  book  appeared. 
The  public  curiosity,  however,  hud  been  fully  excited. 
Extracts  from  it  —  according  to  a  custom  then  prevalent 
in  England  —  had  been  furnished  in  advance  to  some 
of  the  newspapers,  and  though  these  were  not  the  most 
striking  passages,  they  served  to  direct  attention  and 
awaken  expectation.  At  the  close  of  January,  announce 
ment  of  the  precise  date  of  publication  was  made.  Suc 
cess  was  certain  from  the  start;  but  the  degree  of  it 
outran  all  anticipation.  The  evening  papers  of  the  first 
of  February  were  able  to  state  that  up  to  twelve  o'clock 
that  day  there  had  been  sold  three  thousand  five  hun 
dred  copies.  Even  at  this  period,  with  a  population 
more  than  five  times  as  numerous,  such  a  half  day's  sale, 
under  similar  circumstances,  would  be  remarkable.  It 
is  little  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  newspapers  of  that 
period  felt  that  only  largeness  of  type  and  profusion 
of  exclamation  points  could  suitably  record  such  a  suc 
cess. 

**  The  Pioneers  "  was  the  first  work  to  display  a  pe 
culiarity  of  the  author's  character,  which  came  after 
wards  into  marked  prominence.  Cooper  in  a  sense  be 
longed  to  the  school  of  Scott ;  and  he  was  so  far  from 
denying  it  that  in  one  place  he  speaks  of  himself  as  be 
ing  nothing  more  than  a  chip  from  the  former's  block. 
But  his  life  would  have  been  far  happier  and  his  suc 
cess  much  greater  had  he  followed  in  one  respect  the 
example  of  him  he  called  his  master.  Scott  ordinarily 
did  not  read  criticisms  upon  his  own  writings  ;  and  when 
he  did,  he  was  careful  not  to  let  his  equanimity  be  seri- 


42  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

ously  disturbed  even  by  the  severest  attacks.  Much  of 
this  was  no  doubt  due  to  prudence  ;  but  a  good  deal  of 
it  to  contempt.  For  of  all  the  rubbish  that  time  shoots 
into  the  wallet  of  oblivion,  contemporary  criticism  runs 
about  the  least  chance  of  being  rescued  from  the  forget- 
fulness  into  which  it  has  been  thrust.  This  is  a  result 
entirely  independent  of  its  goodness  or  badness.  If  the 
criticism  is  both  destructive  and  just,  the  very  death  of 
the  subject  against  which  it  is  directed  causes  it  to  per 
ish  in  the  ruin  it  has  brought  about.  If  it  is  unjust,  it  is 
certain  to  be  speedily  forgotten,  unless  he  who  suffers 
from  it  takes  the  pains  to  perpetuate  its  memory,  or 
some  later  investigator  drags  it  from  its  obscurity  for 
the  sake  of  pointing  out  its  absurdity.  The  creative 
literature  of  the  past  is  the  utmost  the  present  can  be 
expected  to  read.  Its  critical  literature,  however  cele 
brated  in  its  day,  is  looked  upon  with  contempt,  or  at 
best  with  a  patronizing  approval,  by  the  following  age, 
which  is  always  confident  that  it  at  least  has  reached 
the  supreme  standard  of  correct  taste,  and  asks  no  aid 
in  making  up  its  judgments  from  those  who  have  gone 
before.  But  the  philosophy  which  shows  this  to  be 
true  never  lessened  one  iota  the  pain  which  the  man  of 
sensitive  nature  suffers.  The  extent  to  which  Cooper 
was  affected  by  hostile  criticism  is  something  remark 
able,  even  in  the  irritable  race  of  authors.  He  man 
ifested  under  it  the  irascibility  of  a  man  not  simply  thin- 
skinned,  but  of  one  whose  skin  was  raw.  Meekness 
was  never  a  distinguishing  characteristic  of  his  nature  ; 
and  attack  invariably  stung  him  into  defiance  or  coun 
ter-attack.  Unfriendly  insinuations  contained  in  ob 
scure  journals  could  goad  him  into  remarks  upon  them, 
or  into  a  reply  to  them,  which  at  this  date  is  the  only 


THE  PIONEERS.  43 

means  of  preserving  the  original  charge.  It  was  in  his 
prefaces  that  he  was  apt  to  express  his  resentment  most 
warmly,  for  he  well  knew  that  this  was  the  one  part  of 
a  book  which  the  reviewer  is  absolutely  certain  to  read. 
In  these  he  frequently  took  occasion  to  point  out  to 
the  generation  of  critical  vipers  the  various  offenses  of 
which  they  were  guilty,  the  stupidities  that  seemed  to 
belong  to  their  very  nature,  and  that  utter  lack  of  liter 
ary  skill  which  prevented  them  from  giving  a  look  of 
sense  to  the  most  plausible  nonsense  they  concocted. 
By  Cooper,  indeed,  the  preface  was  looked  upon  not  as  a 
place  to  conciliate  the  reader,  but  to  hurl  scorn  at  the 
reviewer.  In  his  hands  it  became  a  trumpet  from  which 
he  blew  from  time  to  time  critic-defying  strains,  which 
more  than  made  up  in  vigor  for  all  they  lacked  in  pru 
dence.  This  characteristic  was  early  manifested.  In 
the  short  preface  to  the  second  edition  of  "  The  Spy," 
he  could  not  refrain  from  referring  to  the  friends  who 
had  given  him  good  advice,  and  who  had  favored  him 
with  numberless  valuable  hints,  by  the  help  of  which 
the  work  might  be  made  excellent.  But  it  is  the  letter 
to  the  publisher,  with  which  "  The  Pioneers  "  originally 
opened,  that  was  the  first  of  his  regular  warlike  mani 
festoes.  Though  not  very  long,  two  thirds  of  it  was  de 
voted  to  the  men  who  had  publicly  found  fault  with  his 
previous  works.  He  pointed  out  their  discrepancies  in 
taste  and  the  metaphysical  obscurity  of  their  opinions. 
At  the  conclusion  he  wrote  a  sentence  which  some  of 
them  never  forgot.  He  told  his  publisher  that  to  him 
alone  he  should  look  for  the  only  true  account  of  the 
reception  of  his  book.  "  The  critics,"  said  he  in  con 
tinuation,  u  may  write  as  obscurely  as  they  please,  and 
look  much  wiser  than  they  are ;  the  papers  may  puff  and 


44  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

abuse  as  their  changeful  humors  dictate ;  but  if  you 
meet  me  with  a  smiling  face  I  shall  at  once  know  that 
all  is  essentially  well." 

Little  notice,  however,  was  taken  at  the  time  of 
Cooper's  preference  of  the  public  opinion  which  showed 
itself  in  buying  his  books,  to  that  which  made  it  its  chief 
aim  to  teach  him  how  they  ought  to  be  written.  The 
country  was  too  pleased  with  him  and  too  proud  of  him 
to  pay  any  special  attention  to  these  momentary  ebulli 
tions  of  dissatisfaction.  On  his  part  so  great  had  now 
become  his  literary  activity,  that  before  "  The  Pio 
neers  "  was  published  he  had  set  to  work  upon  a  new 
rovel,  of  a  kind  of  which  he  can  justly  be  described  as 
the  creator,  and  in  which  he  was  to  be  followed  by  a 
host  of  imitators. 

At  a  dinner  party  in  New  York  in  1822,  at  which 
Cooper  was  present,  the  authorship  of  the  Waverley 
Is  ovels, -still  a  matter  of  some  uncertainty,  came  up  for 
discussion.  In  December  of  the  preceding  year  "  The 
Pirate  "  had  been  published.  The  incidents  in  this  story 
were  brought  forward  as  a  proof  of  the  thorough  famil 
iarity  with  sea-life  of  him,  whoever  he  was,  that  had  writ 
ten  it.  Such  familiarity  Scott  had  never  had  the  opportu 
nity  to  gain  in  the  only  way  it  could  be  gained.  It  fol 
lowed,  therefore,  that  the  tale  was  not  of  his  composition. 
Cooper,  who  had  never  doubted  the  authorship  of  these 
novels,  did  not  at  all  share  in  this  view.  The  very 
reasons  that  made  others  feel  uncertain  led  him  to  be 
confident.  To  one  like  him  whose  early  life  had  been 
spent  on  top-gallant  yards  and  in  becketing  royals,  it 
was  perfectly  clear  that  "  The  Pirate  "  was  the  work  of 
a  landsman  and  not  of  a  sailor.  Not  that  he  denied  the 
accuracy  of  the  descriptions  so  far  as  they  went.  The 


THE  PILOT.  45 

point  that  he  made  was  that  with  the  same  materials 
far  greater  effects  could  and  would  have  been  produced, 
had  the  author  possessed  that  intimate  familiarity  with 
ocean-life  which  can  be  his  alone  whose  home  for  years 
has  been  upon  the  waves.  He  could  not  convince  his 
opponents  by  argument.  He  consequently  determined 
to  convince  them  by  writing  a  sea-story. 

We  who  are  familiar  with  the  countless  hosts  of 
novels  of  this  nature  that  have  swarmed  and  are  still 
swarming  from  the  press,  cannot  realize  the  apparent 
peril  which  at  that  time  existed  in  this  undertaking. 
No  work  of  the  kind,  such  as  he  now  projected,  had 
ever  yet  been  published.  Sailors,  indeed,  had  been  in 
troduced  into  fiction,  notably  by  Smollett,  but  in  no  case 
had  there  been  exhibited  the  handling  and  movements 
of  vessels,  and  the  details  of  naval  operations.  During 
the  last  half-century  we  have  been  so  surfeited  with 
the  sea-story  in  every  form,  that  most  of  us  have  for 
gotten  the  fact  of  its  late  origin,  and  that  it  is  to  Cooper 
that  it  owes  its  creation.  That  he  created  it  was  not 
due  to  any  encouragement  from  others.  He  had  plenty 
of  judicious  friends  to  warn  him  from  the  undertaking. 
Sailors,  he  was  told,  might  understand  and  appreciate 
it,  but  no  one  else  would.  Minute  detail,  moreover, 
was  necessary  to  render  it  intelligible  to  seamen,  and  to 
landsmen  it  would  be  both  unintelligible  and  uninterest 
ing  on  account  of  the  technicalities  which  must  inevita 
bly  be  found  in  minute  detail.  A  reputation  already 
well  established  would  be  sunk  in  the  treacherous  ele 
ment  he  was  purposing  to  describe.  Cooper  persisted  in 
his  purpose,  but  he  could  not  fail  to  be  disturbed  by  the 
unfavorable  auguries  that  met  him  on  every  side.  These 
naturally  had  the  more  weight,  as  they  came  from  men 


46  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

who  were  attached  to  him  personally,  and  who  were 
honestly  solicitous  for  his  fame.  He  was  at  one  time 
almost  inclined  to  give  up  the  project.  But  a  critical 
English  friend  to  whom  he  submitted  a  portion  of  the 
manuscript  was  delighted  with  it.  In  this  man's  judg 
ment  and  taste  Cooper  felt  so  great  confidence  that  he 
was  induced  to  persevere.  Moreover,  to  try  the  effect 
upon  the  more  peculiar  public  of  seamen,  he  read  an  ex 
tract  to  one  of  his  old  shipmates,  who  was  also  a  relative. 
This  was  the  account  of  the  war-vessel  working  off  shore 
in  a  gale.  The  selection  was  certainly  a  happy  one. 
The  literature  of  the  sea  presents  no  more  thrilling 
chapter  than  that  which,  describing  the  passage  of  the 
great  frigate  through  the  narrow  channel,  gives  every 
detail  with  such  vividness  and  power  that  the  most  un 
imaginative  cannot  merely  see  ship,  shore,  and  foaming 
water,  but  almost  hear  the  roaring  of  the  wind,  the  creak 
ing  of  the  cordage,  and  the  dashing  of  the  waves  against 
the  breakers.  As  he  read  on  the  listener's  interest  kept 
growing  until  he  was  no  longer  able  to  remain  quiet. 
Rising  from  his  seat  he  paced  up  and  down  the  room 
furiously  until  the  chapter  was  finished.  Then  half 
ashamed  of  the  excitement  into  which  he  had  been  be 
trayed,  he  avenged  himself  just  as  if  he  were  a  pro 
fessional  reviewer  by  indulging  in  a  bit  of  special  crit 
icism  :  "  It 's  all  very  well,"  he  burst  out,  "  but  you 
have  let  your  jib  stand  too  long,  my  fine  fellow."  For 
once  Cooper  heeded  advice.  "  I  blew  it  out  of  the  bolt- 
rope,"  said  he,  "  in  pure  spite ; "  and  blown  out  of  the 
bolt-rope  the  jib  appears  in  the  tale. 

He  now  felt  reasonably  confident  of  success,  and  any 
doubt  that  might  have  lingered  in  his  mind  was  at  once 
swept  away  by  the  favorable  reception  the  work  met 


FHS 
II  r 

THE  PILOT. 

when  it  came  out.  Its  publication  was 
layed.  Early  in  the  summer  of  1823  the 
had  been  finished  and  a  portion  of  the  second,  but  any 
further  progress  was  checked  for  the  time  by  an  affliction 
that  then  befell  the  author.  On  the  5th  of  August  his 
youngest  child,  Feuimore,  then  little  less  than  two  years 
old,  died  at  the  family  residence  in  Beach  Street,  New 
York,  and  this  calamity  was  followed  by  illness  of  his 
own.  "  The  Pilot,"  in  consequence,  though  bearing  the 
date^of  1823,  was  not  actually  furnished  to  the  trade 
until  the  7th  of  January,  1824.  Its  success,  both  hi  this 
country  and  in  Europe,  was  instantaneous.  Far-sighted 
men  saw  at  once  that  a  new  realm  had  been  added  to  the 
domain  of  fiction.  "  The  Pilot "  is  indeed  not  only  the 
first  of  Cooper's  sea-stories  in  point  of  time,  but  if  we 
regard  exclusively  the  excellence  of  detached  scenes,  it 
may  perhaps  be  justly  styled  the  best  of  them  all.  At 
any  rate  its  place  in  the  highest  rank  of  this  species  of 
fiction  cannot  be  disputed,  and  in  spite  of  the  multitude 
of  similar  works  that  have  followed  in  its  wake  and 
which  have  had  their  seasons  of  temporary  popularity, 
its  hold  upon  the  public  has  never  been  lost. 

Cooper  was  without  question  exceptionally  fortunate 
in  the  materials  with  which  he  had  to  deal.  He  was 
never  under  the  necessity  of  getting  up  with  infinite  toil 
what  the  modern  novelist  terms  his  local  coloring.  This 
existed  for  him  ready  made.  He  had  only  to  call  to 
mind  the  men  he  had  himself  met,  the  hazards  he  had 
run,  the  life  he  had  lived,  to  be  furnished  with  all  the  in 
cidents  and  scenes  and  characters  that  were  capable  of 
being  wrought  into  romance^  His  descriptions  both  of 
forest  and  of  sea  have  all  that  vividness  and  reality 
which  cannot  well  be  given  save  by  him  who  has 


48  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE  COOPER. 

threaded  at  will  every  maze  of  the  one  and  tossed  for 
week  after  week  upon  the  billows  of  the  other.  More 
over,  in  this  particular  case,  while  he  satisfied  his  patri 
otic  feeling  in  the  choice  of  the  time,  he  displayed  great 
judgment  in  the  selection  of  the  hero.  The  pilot, 
though  never  named,  we  know  to  be  the  extraordinary 
and  daring  adventurer,  John  Paul  Jones,  and  the 
period  is  of  course  the  American  Revolution.  In  his 
literary  art,  likewise,  Cooper  has  never  been  equaled  by 
his  imitators.  Provided  he  could  create  the  desired 
effect,  he  dared  to  let  the  reader  remain  in  ignorance  of 
the  details  he  introduced.  Enough  of  technicality  was 
brought  in  to  satisfy  the  professional  seaman,  but  not 
so  much  as  to  distract  the  attention  of  the  landsman 
from  the  main  movement  of  the  story.  Contented  with 
this  the  author  did  not  seek  to  explain  to  the  latter 
what  he  could  not  well  understand  without  having 
served  personally  before  the  mast.  From  this  rule  he 
never  varied,  save  in  the  few  cases  where  the  interest  of 
the  tale  could  be  better  served  by  imparting  informa- 
"  tion  than  by  withholding  it.  He  had  a  full  artistic 
appreciation  of  the  impressiveness  of  the  unknown.  For, 
in  stories  of  this  kind,  the  vagueness  of  the  reader's 
knowledge  adds  to  the  effect  upon  his  mind,  because, 
while  he  sees  that  mighty  agencies  are  at  work  in  peril 
ous  situations,  his  very  ignorance  of  their  exact  nature 
deepens  the  feeling  of  awe  they  are  of  themselves 
calculated  to  produce.  The  wise  reticence  of  Cooper 
in  this  respect  can  be  seen  by  contrasting  it  with  the 
prodigality  of  information,  contained  in  more  than  one 
modern  sea-novel,  in  which  the  whole  action  of  the  story 
is  arrested  to  explain  a  technical  operation  with  the  re 
sult  that  the  ordinary  reader  finds  the  explanation  more 
unintelligible  than  the  technical  operation  itself. 


LIONEL  LINCOLN.  49 

Still,  in  spite  of  the  excellence  of  the  tales  which  had 
followed  it,  "  The  Spy  "  continued  with  the  majority  of 
readers  to  be  the  most  popular  of  his  works.  This  fact, 
coupled  with  his  intense  love  of  country,  led  him  to 
turn  once  more  for  a  subject  to  his  native  land  and  to 
the  period  in  the  description  of  which  he  had  won  his 
first  fame.  He  formed,  in  fact,  a  plan  of  writing  a  series 
of  works  of  fiction,  the  scenes  of  which  should  be  laid 
in  the  various  colonies  that  had  shared  in  the  Revolu 
tionary  struggle.  In  pursuance  of  this  scheme,  his  next 
work  was  projected.  In  February,  1825,  appeared 
"Lionel  Lincoln,  or  the  Leaguer  ot  Boston."  The  first 
edition  had  a  preliminary  title-page,  which  contained  the 
inscription,  "  Legends  of  the  Thirteen  Republics,"  fol 
lowed  by  this  quotation  from  Hamlet  — 

*'  I  will  fight  with  him  upon  this  theme 
Until  my  eyelids  will  no  longer  wag." 

When  the  plan  he  had  conceived  was  given  up,  this 
addition  naturally  disappeared  with  it.  Nothing  that  in 
dustry  could  do  was  spared  by  Cooper  to  make  this 
work  a  success.  On  this  account  as  well  as  for  its  recep 
tion  by  the  public  it  stands  in  marked  contrast  to  "  The 
Spy."  In  the  preparation  of  it  he  studied  historical  au 
thorities,  he  read  state  papers,  he  pored  over  official 
documents  of  all  kinds  and  degrees  of  dreariness.  To 
have  his  slightest  assertions  in  accordance  with  fact,  he 
examined  almanacs,  and  searched  for  all  the  contemporary 
reports  as  to  the  condition  of  the  weather.  He  visited 
Boston  in  order  to  go  over  in  person  the  ground  he  was 
to  make  the  scene  of  his  story.  As  a  result  of  all  this 
labor  he  has  furnished  us  an  admirable  description  of  the 
engagement  at  Concord  Bridge,  of  the  running  fight 
4 


50  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

of  Lexington,  and  of  the  battle  of  Bunker's  Hill.  Of 
the  last,  it  is,  according  to  the  sufficient  authority  of  Ban 
croft,  the  best  account  ever  given.  At  this  point  praise 
must  stop.  New  England  was  always  to  Cooper  an 
ungenial  clime,  both  as  regards  his  creative  activity  and 
his  critical  appreciation.  The  moment  he  touched  its 
soil,  his  strength  seemed  to  abandon  him.  Whatever 
excellencies  this  particular  work  displayed,  they  were 
not  the  excellencies  of  a  novel.  Accuracy  of  detail, 
even  in  historical  romance,  is  only  a  minor  virtue.  The 
modern  reader  is,  indeed,  often  inclined  to  doubt  whether 
it  is  a  virtue  at  all  now  that  modern  research  is  con 
stantly  showing  that  so  much  we  have  been  wont  to  look 
upon  as  fact  is  nothing  more  than  fable.  So  superior 
is  the  imagination  of  man  turning  out  to  his  memory 
that  one  is  tempted  to  fancy  that  instead  of  going  to  his 
tory  for  our  fiction  we  shall  yet  have  to  turn  about  and 
go  to  fiction  for  our  history. 

"  Lionel  Lincoln  "  is  certainly  one  of  Cooper's  most  sig 
nal  failures.  In  writing  it  he  had  attempted  to  do  what 
it  did  not  lie  in  the  peculiar  nature  of  his  powers  to  ac 
complish.  It  is  the  story  of  crime  long  hidden  from  the 
knowledge  of  men,  but  dogging  with  unceasing  activity 
the  memories  of  those  concerned  in  it.  But  the  secret 
chambers  of  the  soul  into  which  the  guilty  man  never 
looks  willingly,  Cooper  could  neither  enter  himself  nor 
lay  bare  to  others.  Remorse  that  gnaws  incessantly  at 
every  activity  of  the  spirit,  the  consciousness  of  sin  that 
haunts  the  heart  and  hangs  like  a  burden  upon  the  life, 
can  never  well  be  depicted  save  by  him  whose  words 
suggest  more  than  they  reveal.  Cooper  was  not  a  writer 
of  this  kind.  He  belonged  to  that  class  of  literary  art 
ists  who  convey  their  precise  meaning  by  exactness  and 


LIONEL  LINCOLN.  51 

fullness  of  detail.      The  vagueness  and  indefiniteness 
with  which  this  story  abounds  is  not,  therefore,  that  im 
pressive  obscurity  which  springs  from  the  mysterious ; 
it  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  obscurity  of  the  unintelligible 
and  absurd.     In  all  of  Cooper's  novels,  it  is  a  fault  that 
the  characters  are  often  represented  as  acting  without 
sufficient  motive.     In  the  story  of  adventure  this  can  be 
pardoned,  or  at  least  overlooked ;  for  freak  plays  an  im 
portant  part  in  determining  the  movements  of  many  of 
us.     It  is  not  so,  however,  in   tales  containing  a  plot 
similar  to  that  of  "  Lionel  Lincoln."    The  mind  revolts 
at  finding  the  actors  in  the  drama  represented  as  hav 
ing  committed  monstrous  crimes,  without  any  reason 
that  is  worth  mentioning.    This  radical  defect  in  the  plan 
is  not  counterbalanced  by  any  felicity  in  the  execution. 
Many  of  the  incidents  are  more  than  improbable,  they 
are  impossible.     The  style,  likewise,  is  labored,  and  the 
conversations   combine   the   two   undesirable  peculiari 
ties  of  being  both  stilted  and  dull.     The  characters,  fe 
male  or  male,  are  in  no  case  successfully  drawn.     The 
inferior  ones,  introduced  to  amuse,  serve  only  to  depress 
the  reader.     The  hero  in  the  course  of  the  tale  does  sev 
eral  absurd  things ;  but  he  finally  surpasses  himself  by 
hurrying  away  from  the  woman  he  loves,  without  her 
knowledge,  immediately  after  he  has  been  joined  to  her 
in  marriage.     The  representation  of  the  half-witted  Job 
—  a  character  upon  which  the  author  clearly  labored 
hard  —  neither  arouses  interest  nor  touches  the  heart. 
It  is,  indeed,  impossible  to  feel  much   sympathy  with 
one  particular  imbecile,  no  matter  how  patriotic,  in  a 
story  where  most  of  the  actors  are  represented  as  acting 
like  idiots. 

Nevertheless,  his  reputation  and  the  real  excellence 


52  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

of  the  battle  scenes,  saved  this  work  from  seeming  at 
the  time  so  much  of  a  failure  as  it  actually  was.  Cer 
tainly  whatever  loss  of  credit  he  may  have  sustained  as 
the  result  of  writing  "Lionel  Lincoln,"  was  much  more 
than  made  up  by  the  success  of  the  tale  that  followed. 
In  1824  he  had  gone  on  an  excursion  to  Saratoga,  Lake 
George,  and  Lake  Champlain,  with  a  small  party  of 
English  gentlemen.  One  of  these  was  Mr.  Stanley,  the 
future  Lord  Derby.  As  they  reached  Glens  Falls  and 
were  examining  the  caverns  made  by  the  river  at  that 
spot,  Mr.  Stanley  told  Cooper  that  here  ought  to  be  laid 
the  scene  of  a  romance.  In  reply,  the  novelist  assured 
him  that  a  book  should  be  written  in  which  these  cav 
erns  should  have  a  place.  The  promise  was  fulfilled. 
On  the  4th  of  February,  1826,  "  The  Last  of  the  Mohi 
cans  "  made  its  appearance.  It  was  composed  the  previ 
ous  year  in  a  little  cottage  then  situated  in  a  quiet,  open 
country,  on  which  now  stands  the  suburban  village  of 
Astoria.  A  severe  illness  attacked  Cooper  during  its 
progress ;  but  whatever  effect  it  had  upon  his  physical 
frame,  it  certainly  did  not  impair  in  the  slightest  his  in 
tellectual  force.  The  success  of  the  work  was  both  in 
stantaneous  and  prodigious.  Owing,  perhaps,  to  the 
novelty  of  the  scenes  and  characters,  it  was  even  greater 
in  Europe  than  in  America.  But  there  was  no  lack  of 
appreciation  in  his  own  land.  In  the  estimation  of  his 
countrymen,  the  novel  at  once  took  its  place  at  the  head 
of  his  productions.  An  incidental  fact  will  not  only 
make  clear  its  success,  but  the  state  of  the  book  trade  at 
that  time.  The  demand  for  the  work  soon  became  so 
great  and  so  persistent,  that  in  April  it  was  decided  to 
stereotype  it. 

It  deserved  fully  the  success  it  gained.     Of  all  the 


THE  LAST  OF  THE  MOHICANS.  53 

novels  written  by  Cooper,  "  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans  " 
is  the  one  in  which  the  interest  not  only  never  halts,  but 
never  sinks.  It  is,  indeed,  an  open  question,  whether  a 
higher  art  would  not  have  given  more  breathing-places 
in  this  exciting  tale,  in  which  the  mind  is  hurried  with 
out  pause  from  sensation  to  sensation.  But  this  is  a 
fault,  if  it  be  a  fault,  which  the  reader  will  always  for 
give,  whatever  the  critic  may  say.  The  latter,  indeed, 
can  see  much  to  blame  if  he  look  at  the  work  purely  as 
an  artistic  creation.  He  can  find  improbability  of  action, 
insufficiency  of  motive,  and  feebleness  of  outline  in  many 
of  the  leading  characters.  But  these  are  minor  draw 
backs.  They  sink  into  absolute  insignificance  when 
compared  with  the  wealth  of  power  displayed.  As  they 
are  unable  to  retard  the  unflagging  interest  with  which 
the  story  is  read,  so  they  do  not  essentially  modify  the 
estimation  of  it  after  it  has  been  read. 

In  this  work  two— great  ajchievements  were  accom 
plished  by  Cooper.  The  first  was  the  idealization  of  the 
white  hunter  whom  he  had  described  in  "The  Pioneers." 
No  one  can  read  the  two  novels  in  succession  without 
seeing  at  once  how  much  Leather-Stpcking  has  gained  in 
dignity.  In  thought  and  feeling  and  habits  he  is  essen 
tially  the  same ;  but  there  was  given  to  his  character  a/ 
poetic  elevation  which  raised  it  at  once  to  the  front  rani 
of  the  creations  of  the  imagination,  and  will  make  it  ii 
perishable  with  English  literature.  As  he  appears  in 
"  The  Pioneers  "  he  is  merely  an  old  man  who  has  made 
his  home  in  the  hills  in  advance  of  the  tide  of  settle 
ment.  He  is  the  solitary  hunter  who  views  with  dislike 
clearings  and  improvements,  who  cannot  breathe  freely 
in  streets,  who  hates  the  sight  of  masses  of  men,  who 
looks  with  especial  loathing  upon  the  civilization  whose 


54  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

first  work  is  to  fell  the  trees  he  has  learned  to  love, 
whose  first  exercise  of  power  is  to  draw  the  network 
of  the  law  around  the  freedom  and  irresponsibility  of 
forest  life.  Though  full  of  a  simple  and  somewhat 
sententious  morality,  he  is  querulous,  irritable,  ignorant. 
But  in  "  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,"  while  the  man 
continues  the  same,  the  aspect  he  presents  is  wholly 
different.  All  that  is  weak  in  his  character  is  in  the 
background ;  all  that  is  best  and  strongest  comes  to  the 
front.  He  is  in  the  prime  of  life.  Ignorant  he  still 
remains  of  the  ways  of  the  world  as  found  in  the  settle 
ments  ;  but  there  is  no  trace  of  discontent  or  fretfuluess. 
He  has  full  room  for  the  exercise  of  his  native  virtues, 
and  in  the  character  of  the  acute  and  daring  scout  he 
finds  no  superior.  To  him  forest  and  sky  are  an  open 
book.  Knowledge  is  conveyed  to  his  ears  in  every 
sound  that  breaks  the  stillness  of  the  summer  woods  ; 
and  to  his  eyes  scarred  rock  and  riven  pine  and  the 
deserted  nest  of  the  eagle  have  made  the  paths  of  the 
wilderness  as  plain  as  the  broadest  highway.  Nor  are 
his  moral  qualities  inferior  to  his  purely  professional. 
His  coolness  never  deserts  him,  his  resources  never  fail 
him,  and  along  with  the  versatility  that  is  never  at  a 
loss  in  the  presence  of  the  unexpected  is  the  resolution 
that  never  flinches  at  the  approach  of  the  perilous. 

This  delineation  has  always  met  with  unqualified 
praise.  But  the  idealization  of  the  Indian  character  as 
seen  in  Chingachcook  and  Uncas  has  been  the  subject 
of  much  controversy.  This  is  not  the  place  to  express 
an  opinion  upon  the  truth  of  the  representation.  It  is 
enough  to  say  here  that  the  view  Cooper  took  was  not 
hastily  formed,  nor  was  it  the  result  of  accidental  prej- 
udiceso  He  studied  all  the  sources  of  information  ac- 


TEE  LAST  OF  THE  MOHlL'AXS.  55 

cessible  at  that  time  which  threw  light  upon  the  Indian 
character.  He  visited  the  deputations  from  the  various 
tribes  that  passed  through  the  state  of  ]Sew  York  on 
their  way  to  the  national  capital.  In  some  instances 
he  followed  them  to  Washington.  It  is  obvious  that  to 
a  man  of  his  poetic  temperament  they  may  have  ap 
peared  in  a  different  light  from  what  they  did  to  the 
ordinary  government  agent.  Certainly  he  never  found 
reason  to  modify  his  views,  though  he  was  familiar  with 
the  criticism  made  upon  them.  Toward  the  close  of 
his  life  he  took  occasion  to  reaffirm  them.  It  is  also  to/ 
be  added  that  if  he  gave  especial  prominence  to  certain 
virtues,  real  or  imaginary,  of  the  Indian  race,  he  was 
equally  careful  not  to  pass  over  their  vices.  Most  of 
the  warriors  he  introduces  are  depicted  as  crafty,  blood 
thirsty,  and  merciless.  But  whether  his  representation 
be  true  or  false,  it  has  from  that  time  to  this  profoundly 
affected  opinion.  Throughout  the  whole  civilized  world 
the  conception  of  the  Indian  character,  as  Cooper  drew 
it  in  "  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans "  and  still  further 
elaborated  it  in  the  later  "Leather-Stocking  Tales,"  has 
taken  permanent  hold  of  the  imaginations  of  men.  Indi 
viduals  may  cast  it  off ;  but  in  the  case  of  the  great  mass 
it  stands  undisturbed  by  doubt  or  unshaken  by  denial. 
This  much  can  be  said  in  its  favor  irrespective  of  the 
question  of  its  accuracy.  If  Cooper  has  given  to  Indian 
conversation  more  poetry  than  it  is  thought  to  possess, 
or  to  Indian  character  more  virtue,  the  addition  has 
been  a  gain  to  literature,  whatever  it  may  have  been  to 
truth. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

1826-1830. 

WITH  the  publication  of  "The  Last  of  the  Mohi 
cans,"  Cooper's  popularity  was  at  its  height.  His 
countrymen  were  proud  of  him,  proud  that  he  had 
chosen  his  native  land  as  the  scene  of  his  stories,  proud 
that  he  had  in  consequence  extended  among  all  culti 
vated  peoples  its  fame  as  well  as  his  own.  His  works 
were  more  than  read.  They  were  in  most  cases  dram 
atized  and  acted  as  soon  as  published.  Artists  vied  in 
making  incidents  depicted  in  them  the  subjects  of  their 
paintings.  Poems,  founded  upon  them  or  connected  in 
some  way  with  them,  made  their  appearance  in  the 
newspapers.  If  in  many  cases  these  things  were  in 
themselves  of  no  value,  they  at  least  served  to  show 
the  widespread  popular  interest  which  his  writings  had 
aroused.  Moreover,  his  reputation  was  far  from  being 
limited  to  his  own  land.  No  other  American,  before  or 
since,  has  enjoyed  so  wide  a  contemporary  popularity. 
Irving  may  have  been  on  the  whole  a  greater  favorite 
in  Pjii  gland;  but  if  so,  it  was  largely  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  subjects  upon  which  he  was  employed  were  of 
special  interest  to  English  readers,  and  his  manner  of 
treating  them  was  flattering  to  English  prejudices. 
But  the  Continental  fame  of  Cooper  was  unrivaled,  and 
indeed  could  fairly  be  said  to  hold  its  own  with  that  of 
Walter  Scott.  Long  before  he  went  to  Europe  him- 


REPUTATION  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD.  57 

self,  his  works  appeared  simultaneously  in  America, 
England,  and  France.  They  were  speedily  translated 
into  German  and  Italian,  and  in  most  instances  soon 
found  their  way  into  the  other  cultivated  tongues  of 
Europe.  Everywhere  his  ability  had  been  recognized 
by  those  whose  approbation,  if  it  could  not  confer 
immortality,  was  certain  to  bring  with  it  temporary 
applause.  The  admiration  expressed  for  him  was  far 
less  marked  in  England  than  upon  the  Continent ;  but 
even  there  it  could  often  be  termed  cordial.  It  came, 
too,  from  those  who,  whatever  estimation  we  may  give 
to  their  praise,  did  not  praise  lightly.  From  Miss 
Edgeworth  he  received  personally  a  tribute  to  his  suc 
cess  in  delineating  the  characters  in  which  her  own 
reputation  had  been  largely  won.  On  reading  "  The 
Spy,"  she  sent  him  a  message,  that  she  liked  Betty 
Flanigan  particularly,  and  that  no  Irish  pen  could 
have  drawn  her  better.  Scott  had  been  much  struck 
by  the  scenes  and  personages  depicted  in  "  The  Pilot," 
the  novel  he  first  read,  and  predicted  at  once  the  suc 
cess  of  the  sea-story  and  of  its  creator.  Many  there 
were,  even  in  England,  who  looked  upon  Cooper  as 
being  equal  to  the  great  master  of  historical  romance. 
"  Have  you  read  the  American  novels  ? "  wrote  in  No 
vember,  1824,  Mary  Russell  Mitford  to  a  friend.  "  In 
my  mind  they  are  as  good  as  anything  Sir  Walter  ever 
wrote.  He  has  opened  fresh  ground,  too  (if  one  may 
say  so  of  the  sea).  No  one  but  Smollett  has  ever 
attempted  to  delineate  the  naval  character ;  and  then 
his  are  so  coarse  and  hard.  Now  this  has  the  same 
truth  and  power  with  a  deep,  grand  feeliog.  .  .  .  Im 
agine  the  author's  boldness  in  taking  Paul  Jones  for  a 
hero,  and  his  power  in  making  one  care  for  him !  I 


58  JAMES  TENIMORE  COOPER. 

envy  the  Ainericans  their  Mr.  Cooper.  .  .  .  There  is  a 
certain  Long  Tom  who  appears  to  me  the  finest  thing 
since  Parson  Adams."  Subsequently,  in  July,  1826, 
she  spoke  thus  of  "  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,"  in  a 
letter  to  Haydon :  "  I  like  it,"  she  wrote,  "  better  than 
any  of  Scott's,  except  the  three  first  and  *  The  Heart  of 
Mid-Lothian.'  "  The  praise,  indeed,  given  both  then  and 
at  a  later  period,  may  often  seem  extravagant.  In  a 
passage  written  in  1835,  Barry  Cornwall,  not  merely 
content  with  putting  Cooper  at  the  head  of  all  Ameri 
can  authors,  added  that  he  may  "  dare  competition  with 
almost  any  writer  whatever." 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  opinions  such  as  these 
were  not  to  be  found  generally  in  the  English  literary 
periodicals.  Cooper's  name  was  not  even  mentioned  in 
the  great  reviews  until. his  fame  had  been  secured  with 
out  their  aid.  The  success  which  he  won  in  Great 
Britain  was  not  due  in  the  slightest  to  the  professional 
critics.  These  men  fancied  they  had  exhausted  the 
power  of  panegyric  when  they  went  so  far  as  to  term 
him  the  American  Scott.  This  fact  was  triumphantly 
paraded  at  a  later  period  by  a  writer  in  Blackwood, 
presumably  Wilson,  as  one  of  the  convincing  proofs  of 
the  untruthfulness  of  the  charge  made  by  Barry  Corn 
wall,  that  authors  from  this  country  were  treated  with 
systematic  unfairness  in  English  reviews.  "  Were  we 
ever  unjust  to  Cooper  ?  "  he  asked.  "  Why,  people  call 
him  the  American  Scott."  This  sort  of  patting  on  the 
Lack  was  thought  a  proud  illustration  of  the  generosity 
of  the  British  character,  and  as  putting  the  recipient  of 
it  under  obligations  of  everlasting  gratitude. 

There  is  no  doubt,  indeed,  that  the  reputation  of 
Cooper  suffered  all  his  life  by  the  constant  comparison 


REPUTATION  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD          59 

that  was  made  between  him  and  the  great  Scotch  writer. 
It  was  to  a  certain  extent  inevitable ;  but  it  was  none 
the  less  unfortunate.  He  could  never  be  judged  by 
what  he  did  ;  it  was  always  by  the  fanciful  test  of  how 
some  one  else  would  have  done  it.  This  was  even  more 
true  of  his  own  country  than  of  England.  Scott's 
popularity  was  greater  here  than  it  was  anywhere  else. 
Ther^  was  a  feeling  akin  almost  to  moral  reprobation 
expressed  against  any  one  who  should  presume  to  fancy 
that  the  best  work  of  any  native  author  could  equal 
the  poorest  that  Scott  put  forth.  The  Continental 
opinion  which  at  that  time  often  reckoned  the  Ameri 
can  novelist  as  equal,  if  not  superior  to  his  British  con 
temporary,  seemed  to  men  here  like  a  profanation.  It 
was,  indeed,  so  said  in  direct  terms. 

Comparison  with  Scott,  therefore,  always  put  the  one 
compared  at  a  great  disadvantage.  This,  however,  is  a 
method  of  judging  that  is  necessary  to  some  and  easy  to 
all.  Genuine  appreciation  demands  study  and  thought. 
For  these  comparison  is  a  cheap  substitute.  To  call 
Cooper  the  American  Scott  in  compliment  in  the  days 
of  his  popularity,  and  in  derision  in  the  days  of  his  un 
popularity,  was  a  method  of  criticism  which  enabled 
men  to  praise  or  undervalue  without  taking  the  trouble 
to  think.  Stories  were  invented  and  set  in  circulation 
of  how  he  himself  rejoiced  in  being  so  designated. 
Great,  accordingly,  was  the  indignation  felt  and  ex 
pressed  by  these  gentry  at  the  presumption  of  the 
American  author,  when  at  a  later  period  he  asserted 
that  so  far  from  taking  pride  in  the  title,  it  merely 
gave  him  just  as  much  gratification  as  any  nickname 
could  give  a  gentleman. 

It  would  be,  moreover,  far  from  truth  to  say  that 


60  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

in  this  most  prosperous  portion  of  his  career  his  popu 
larity  was  unmixed  in  his  own  country.  Even  then  his 
success  had  aroused  a  good  deal  of  envy.  In  1823  he 
was  attacked,  in  common  with  many  prominent  citizens 
of  New  York,  in  a  satire  called  "  Gotham  and  the 
Gothamites."  This  was  the  work  of  a  man  of  the 
name  of  Judah,  who,  in  1822,  had  published  a  dramatic 
poem  styled  "  Odofried  the  Outcast."  The  title  was 
ominous  of  the  fate  which  the  production  met.  The 
author  naturally  felt  that  the  age  was  unappreciative. 
To  relieve  his  mind  he  wrote  eleven  or  twelve  hundred 
lines  of  fresh  drivel,  in  which  he  assailed  everything 
and  everybody.  The  satire  was  of  that  dreadful  kind 
which  requires  notes  and  commentaries  to  point  out 
who  is  hit  and  what  is  meant ;  and  the  annotation,  as  is 
usual  in  such  cases,  took  up  much  more  space  than  the 
text.  This  work — for  which  the  author  was  sent  to  jail, 
though  a  lunatic  asylum  would  have  been  a  far  fitter 
place  —  is  only  of  interest  here  because  it  bears  direct 
and  positive  evidence  to  the  fact  that  at  this  time 
Cooper  was  the  most  widely  read  of  American  authors. 
But  jealousy  of  his  fame  could  be  found  among  men 
of  much  higher  pretensions  than  this  wretched  poe 
taster.  "The  North  American  Review"  had  at  that 
time  been  ponderously  revolving  through  space  for 
several  years.  It  was  then  a  periodical  respectable, 
classical,  and  dull,  all  three  in  an  eminent  degree. 
Towards  Cooper  it  struggled  in  a  feeble  way  to  be 
just,  but  for  all  that  it  was  the  exponent  of  a  distinctly 
..unfriendly  feeling.  Among  individuals  a  conspicuous 
representative  of  this  hostility  was  the  poet  Percival. 
He  could  not  endure  the  reputation  which  the  novelist 
had  acquired.  Percival  was  a  man  of  a  good  deal  of 


REPUTATION  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD.          61 

ability,  of  a  great  deal  of  knowledge,  and  of  an  inex 
haustible  capacity  of  spinning  out  verse,  never  rising 
much  above,  nor  falling  much  below  mediocrity,  which, 
if  mere  quantity  were  the  only  element  to  be  considered, 
would  have  justified  him  in  contracting  to  produce 
enough  to  constitute  of  itself  a  national  literature.  As 
he  invariably  proved  himself  entirely  destitute  of  com 
mon  sense  in  his  ordinary  conduct,  he  was  led  to  fancy 
that  he  was  not  merely  a  man  of  ability,  but  a  man  of 
genius ;  and  during  the  whole  of  his  life  he  perpetually 
posed  as  that  most  intolerable  of  literary  nuisances,  a 
man  of  unappreciated  genius.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that 
he  had  been  hospitably  entertained  and  befriended  by 
Cooper,  he  could  not  be  satisfied,  because  their  common 
publisher  looked  upon  the  latter  as  the  "greatest  literary 
genius  in  America."  The  reception  given  by  the  public 
to  the  "long,  dirty,  straggling  tales"  of  the  novelist 
disgusted  him.  "I  ask  nothing,"  he  wrote  in  April, 
1823,  "  of  a  people  who  will  lavish  their  patronage  on 
such  a  vulgar  book  as  "  The  Pioneers."  They  and  I  are 
well  quit.  They  neglect  me,  and  I  despise  them."  In 
a  later  letter  he  returned  to  this  work.  "  It  might  do," 
he  said,  "  to  amuse  the  select  society  of  a  barber's  shop 
or  a  porter-house.  But  to  have  the  author  step  forward 
on  such  stilts  and  claim  to  be  the  lion  of  our  national 
literature,  and  fall  to  roaring  himself  and  set  all  his 
jackals  howling  (S.  C.  &  Co.)  to  put  better  folks  out 
of  countenance  —  why  'tis  pitiful,  'tis  wondrous  pitiful 
at  least  for  the  country  that  not  only  suffers  it  but 
encourages  it."  Percival,  indeed,  his  biographer  tells 
us,  was  subsequently  urged  to  contribute  to  "  The  North 
American  Review"  a  critical  article  on  "The  Prairie/'  in 
which  simple  justice  was  to  be  done  to  Cooper  —  which 


62  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE   COOPER. 

phrase  had,  of  course,  its  usual  meaning,  that  injustice 
was  to  be  done  him.  The  poet's  customary  indecision 
prevailed,  however ;  the  country  was  spared  this  exhibi 
tion  of  spiteful  incapacity,  and  the  novelist  was  left  to 
stumble  along  in  uncertainty  as  to  his  precise  position 
among  men  of  letters. 

Not  but  there  were  plenty  of  men  anxious  to  show 
it.  Especially  was  this  true  of  that  class  which  looked 
upon  it  as  the  supreme  effort  of  critical  judgment  to 
exaggerate  the  value  of  everything  written  in  Europe 
and  depreciate  everything  of  native  origin.  There  was 
a  prevailing  belief  among  those  who  mistook  their  own 
individual  impotence  for  the  incapaci'ty  of  a  whole  peo 
ple,  that  nothing  good  could  come  out  of  America. 
Many  showed  their  faith  by  their  conduct.  In  1834, 
Cooper  himself  said  that  he  knew  of  several  instances 
in  which  persons  had  not  read  anything  he  had  written 
for  the  avowed  reason  that  nothing  worth  reading  could 
be  written  by  one  of  their  countrymen.  To  all  of  these 
it  was  a  subject  of  some  perplexity  and  of  more  annoy 
ance  that  his  works  should  be,  if  anything,  more  popu 
lar  in  Europe  than  they  were  in  his  native  land.  To 
account  for  this  fact  various  sage  reasons  were  early 
suggested  and  are  still  occasionally  heard.  One  of  these 
has  always  been  particularly  common.  This  was  that  it 
was  the  novelty  of  the  scenes  and  characters  depicted 
that  attracted  attention  and  not  the  ability  shown  in 
depicting  them.  At  any  rate,  they  wished  it  understood 
that  if  he  satisfied  the  European,  he  did  not  satisfy  the 
native  world :  for  if  creative  power  had  been  denied 
us,  we  could  at  least  show  that  as  a  compensation  we 
had  been  supplied  with  a  double  portion  of  refined  taste. 
Speaking  in  behalf  of  the  American  people,  these  critics 


REPUTATION  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD.  63 

expressed  anxiety  that  neither  at  home  nor  abroad 
should  Cooper  be  regarded  as  obtaining  the  unqualified 
admiration  or  attaining  the  lofty  ideal  of  "  all  of  us." 
Against  any  such  impression  they  entered  their  humble 
protest.  All  that  lay  in  their  power  should  be  done  to 
counteract  it.  This  is  no  one-sided  statement  of  opinions 
then  expressed.  These  very  sentiments  in  almost  these 
very  words  can  be  found  in  reviews  of  that  period. 

Cooper  at  the  time  of  writing  his  first  novel  was 
dwelling  at  Angevine.  When  the  success  of  the  second 
made  it  probable  that  he  would  continue  for  a  while  his 
career  as  an  author,  and  possibly  devote  his  life  to  it, 
the  necessity  arose  of  changing  his  residence.  His  coun 
try  home  was  about  five  and  twenty  miles  from  the  city, 
but  twenty-five  miles  in  those  days  of  limited  mail  facil 
ities  and  limited  means  of  communication  was  a  distance 
not  to  be  tolerated.  Accordingly,  in  1822  he  moved 
into  New  York.  Either  there  or  in  its  suburbs  he  dwelt 
until  his  departure  for  Europe.  Here  his  youngest 
child,  Paul,  was  born  in  1824,  and  here,  as  has  already 
been  mentioned,  his  infant  son  Fenimore  died.  His  tal 
ents  and  his  reputation  gave  him  at  once  a  leading  po 
sition  in  society.  Nor  were  his  associates  inferior  men. 
He  founded  a  club  which  included  on  its  rolls  the  resi 
dents  of  New  York  then  best  known  in  literature  and 
law,  science  and  art.  The  names  of  many  will  be  even 
more  familiar  to  our  ears  than  they  were  to  those  of 
their  contemporaries.  All  forms  of  intellectual  activity 
were  represented.  To  this  club  belonged,  among  others, 
Chancellor  Kent  the  jurist ;  Verplanck,  the  editor  of 
Shakespeare ;  Jarvis  the  painter ;  Durand  the  engraver ; 
DeKay  the  naturalist ;  Wiley  the  publisher  ;  Morse  the 
inventor  of  the  electric  telegraph  ;  Halleck  and  Bryant, 


64  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

the  poets.  It  was  sometimes  called  after  the  name  of 
its  founder ;  but  it  more  commonly  bore  the  title  of  the 
i  "  Bread  and  Cheese  Lunch."  It  met  weekly,  and  Cooper, 
whenever  he  was  in  the  city,  was  invariably  present. 
More  than  that,  he  was  the  life  and  soul  of  it.  Though 
kept  up  for  a  while  after  bis  departure  from  the  coun 
try,  it  was  only  a  languishing  existence  it  maintained, 
and  even  this  speedily  ended  in  death. 

His  pecuniary  situation  had  been  largely  improved 
bv  his  literary  success.  The  pressure  upon  his  means 
had  in  fact  been  one  of  the  main  reasons,  if  not  the 
main  reason,  that  had  led  him  to  contemplate  pursuing  a 
literary  life.  The  property  left  by  his  father  had  grad 
ually  dwindled  in  value,  partly  through  lack  of  care 
ful  uninterrupted  management.  His  elder  brothers,  on 
whom  the  administration  of  the  estate  had  successively 
devolved,  had  died.  The  result  was,  that  he  found  him 
self  without  the  means  which  in  his  childhood  he  might 
justly  have  looked  forward  to  possessing.  So  far  from 
being  a  man  of  wealth  he  was  in  the  earlier  part  of  his 
literary  career  a  poor  man.  From  any  difficulties,  how 
ever,  into  which  he  may  have  fallen  he  was  more  than 
retrieved  by  the  success  of  what  he  wrote.  Precisely 
what  was  the  sale  of  his  books,  or  how  much  he  re 
ceived  for  their  sale,  it  would  be  hard  and  perhaps  im 
possible  now  to  tell.  He  was  careless  himself  about 
preserving  any  records  of  such  facts.  But,  besides  this 
natural  indifference,  he  seemed  to  resent  any  public  ref 
erence  to  the  price  paid  him  for  his  writings  as  an  un 
authorized  intrusion  into  his  personal  affairs.  Allusions 
even  to  the  amount  of  his  receipts  he  apparently  re 
garded  as  springing  not  so  much  from  a  feeling  of  pride 
in  his  success,  as  from  a  desire  to  represent  him  as  be- 


REPUTATION  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD.          65 

ing  under  great  obligations  to  his  countrymen.  In  some 
instances  he  was  certainly  correct  in  so  regarding  it. 
On  one  occasion  after  his  return  from  Europe,  he  de 
nied  the  truth  of  an  assertion  made  in  a  newspaper,  as 
to  the  amount  he  derived  from  the  sale  of  each  of  his 
novels.  "  It  remains  for  the  public  to  decide,"  said  he, 
"  whether  it  will  tolerate  or  not  this  meddling  with  pri 
vate  interests  by  any  one  who  can  get  the  command 
of  a  little  ink  and  a  few  types."  In  the  prefatory  ad 
dress  to  the  publisher  which  appeared  in  the  first  edi 
tion  of  "  The  Pioneers,"  he  made  the  statement,  that 
the  success  of  "  The  Spy,"  should  always  remain  a  se 
cret  between  themselves.  This  reticence  and  dislike  of 
publicity  continued  throughout  the  whole  of  his  career. 
It  extended  to  everything  connected  with  his  writings. 
Our  knowledge  on  these  points  is,  therefore,  both  scanty 
and  uncertain.  The  size  of  the  editions  has  never  been 
given  to  the  public.  The  sale  of  "  The  Pioneers  "  on 
the  morning  of  its  publication  has  already  been  noticed ; 
and  there  are  contemporary  newspaper  statements  to 
the  effect  that  the  first  edition  of  "  The  Red  Rover  "  con 
sisted  of  five  thousand  copies,  and  that  this  was  ex 
hausted  in  a  few  days.  But  it  is  only  from  incidental 
references  of  this  kind,  which  can  rarely  be  relied  upon 
absolutely,  that  we  at  this  late  day  are  able  to  gain  any 
specific  information  whatever. 

He  was  unquestionably  helped  in  the  end,  however, 
by  what  in  the  beginning  threatened  to  be  a  serious  if 
Dot  insuperable  obstacle.  He  was  unable  to  get  any 
one  concerned  in  the  book  trade  to  assume  the  risk  of 
bringing  out  "  The  Spy."  That  had  to  be  taken  by  the 
author  himself.  In  the  case  of  this  novel,  we  know 
positively  that  Cooper  was  not  only  the  owner  of  the 
5 


66  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

copyright,  but  of  all  the  edition  ;  that  he  gave  directions 
as  to  the  terms  on  which  the  work  was  to  be  furnished 
to  the  booksellers,  while  the  publishers,  Wiley  &  Hal- 
sted,  had  no  direct  interest  in  it,  and  received  their 
reward  by  a  commission.  It  is  evident  that  under  this 
arrangement  his  profits  on  the  sale  were  far  larger  than 
would  usually  be  the  case.  Whether  he  followed  the 
same  method  in  any  of  his  later  productions,  there 
seems  to  be  no  means  of  ascertaining.  Wiley,  how 
ever,  until  his  death,  continued  to  be  his  publisher. 
•"  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans  "  went  into  the  hands  of 
Carey  &  Lea  of  Philadelphia  ;  and  this  firm,  under 
various  changes  of  name,  continued  to  bring  out  the 
American  edition  of  his  novels  until  the  year  1844.  It 
-was  from  the  sales  in  this  country  that  most  of  the  in 
come  from  his  books  was  derived.  England,  indeed, 
brought  him  a  large  sum,  at  least  up  to  the  passage  of 
the  copyright  law  of  1838 ;  but  he  gained  little  pecu 
niary  benefit  from  the  wide  circulation  of  his  works  on 
the  European  continent,  whatever  may  have  been  the 
renown.  In  regard  to  France,  he  said  in  1834  after 
his  return,  that  he  had  paid  in  taxes  to  the  government 
of  that  country,  during  his  different  residences  in  it,  con 
siderably  more  money  than  was  obtained  from  the  sales 
of  the  sheets  of  fourteen  books.  In  Germany,  where 
his  writings  had  an  immense  circulation,  his  receipts 
were  still  less. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  precise  amount 
acquired  by  the  sale  of  his  works,  it  was  sufficient  to 
pay  off  heavy  debts  incurred  by  others,  but  which  he 
was  compelled  to  assume,  to  put  him  in  an  independent 
position  and  justify  him  in  determining  to  fulfill  a  long- 
cherished  desire  of  spending  some  time  in  Europe.  Ac- 


RESIDENCE  IN  EUROPE.  67 

cordingly  on  the  1st  of  June,  1826,  he  sailed  with  his 
family  —  consisting,  with  the  servants,  of  ten  persons  — 
from  the  port  of  New  York.  On  the  5th  of  November, 
1833,  he  landed  there  on  his  return.  His  original  in 
tention  was  to  be  gone  for  but  five  years.  To  the  fixing 
of  this  particular  time  he  was  apparently  influenced  by 
a  remark  of  Jefferson,  that  no  American  should  remain 
away  for  a  longer  period  from  the  country,  because  if 
he  did,  so  rapid  were  the  changes,  its  facts  would  have 
got  wholly  beyond  his  knowledge.  His  absence  actually 
extended  to  a  little  less  than  seven  years  and  a  half. 
Most  of  this  time  was  spent  in  France.  From  Henry 
Clay,  then  Secretary  of  State,  he  had  received  the  ap 
pointment  of  consul  at  Lyons.  He  had  asked  for  it,  be 
cause  he  did  not  wish  to  have  the  appearance  of  expa 
triating  himself;  for  as  the  service  was  then  conducted, 
such  a  post  involved  no  duties  and  brought  in  no  re 
turns.  His  commission  bears  date  the  10th  of  May, 
1826.  Even  this  nominal  position  he  gave  up  after 
holding  it  between  two  and  three  years.  No  resigna 
tion  of  his  is  on  file  in  the  State  Department;  but  a 
successor  was  appointed  on  the  loth  of  January,  1829. 
He  threw  up  the  place  because  he  had  come  to  enter 
tain  the  conviction  that  gross  abuses  existed  in  the  sys 
tem  of  foreign  appointments,  and  it  became  him  to  set 
an  example  of  the  principles  he  professed. 

It  may  be  well  at  this  point  to  furnish  an  outline 
sketch  of  his  various  residences  in  Europe.  The  voyage 
from  America  lasted  about  a  month ;  and  after  staying 
a  few  days  in  England  he  passed  over  to  France,  on 
the  soil  of  which  he  first  set  foot  on  the  18th  of  July, 
1826.  Either  in  Paris  or  its  immediate  neighborhood 
he  remained  until  February,  1828,  when  he  crossed 


68  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

over  to  England.  Leaving  London  early  in  June,  he 
went  back  to  France  by  the  way  of  Holland  and  Bel 
gium.  In  July,  1828,  he  left  Paris  for  Switzerland, 
and  took  up  his  residence  near  Berne.  After  spending 
some  weeks  in  making  excursions  from  that  point,  he 
crossed  the  Alps  in  October  by  the  Simplon  Pass.  The 
following  winter  and  spring  he  spent  in  Florence  and 
its  vicinity.  In  the  summer  of  1829  he  sailed  down 
the  Italian  coast  to  Naples,  and  after  staying  a  few 
weeks  in  that  city,  made  a  home  for  himself  and  his 
family  at  Sorrento  for  nearly  three  months.  The  winter 
of  1829-30  he  spent  in  Eome.  In  the  spring  of  1830 
he  went  to  Venice.  From  that  place  he  journeyed  to 
Munich  by  the  Tyrol,  and  finally  settled  down  in 
Dresden.  From  his  temporary  home  in  Saxony,  how 
ever,  the  July  revolution  speedily  drew  him  to  Paris, 
and  that  city  he  made  mainly  his  residence  from  that 
time  until  his  return  to  America  in  1833.  There  he 
was,  and  there  he  stood  his  ground  during  the  terrible 
cholera  ravages  of  1832.  Occasional  expeditions  he 
made,  and  of  one  in  particular,  up  the  Rhine  and  in 
Switzerland,  he  has  published  a  full  account. 

It  was  eminently  characteristic  of  Cooper,  that  though 
he  brought  with  him  letters  of  introduction,  he  found 
himself  unwilling  to  deliver  a  single  one  of  them.  Yet, 
certainly,  if  any  American  could  be  pardoned  the  use 
of  a  custom  that  has  been  so  much  abused,  he  was  the 
man.  But  after  he  had  resided  quietly  in  France  for 
a  few  weeks,  he  happened  to  attend  a  diplomatic  dinner 
given  by  the  United  States  minister  to  Canning,  then 
on  a  visit  to  Paris.  This  was  the  occasion  of  making 
his  presence  known  to  those  who  had  long  before  made 
the  acquaintance  of  his  writings.  He  was  at  once  sought 


RESIDENCE  IN  EUROPE.  69 

out  and  welcomed  by  the  most  distinguished  men  of  the 
most  brilliant  capital  in  the  world.  The  polish,  the 
grace,  the  elegance,  and  the  wit  of  French  social  life 
made  upon  him  an  impression  which  he  not  only  never 
forgot,  but  which  he  was  afterwards  in  the  habit  of  con 
trasting  with  the  social  life  of  England  and  America, 
to  the  manifest  disadvantage  of  both,  and  with  the  cer 
tain  result  of  provoking  the  hostility  of  each.  He  him 
self  says  very  little  of  the  reception  he  met ;  but  we 
know  from  other  sources  how  cordial  and  even  deferential 
it  was.  He  was  not  a  man,  indeed,  to  enjoy  being  lion 
ized,  to  be  set  up,  as  he  expressed  it,  at  a  dinner-table 
as  a  piece  of  luxury,  like  strawberries  in  February  or 
peaches  in  April.  But  he  was  in  a  capital  where  at 
tention  is  always  paid  to  ability,  though  rarely  with 
noisy  demonstration.  He  received  his  full  share  of  it. 
"Without  mentioning  numerous  other  evidences,  the  con 
spicuous  position  he  held  is  evident  from  the  way  Scott 
speaks  of  him  in  his  diary.  He  mentions  meeting  him 
one  evening  at  the  Princess  Galitzin's  in  November, 
1826.  "Cooper  was  there,"  said  he,  "so  the  Scotch 
and  American  lions  took  the  field  together." 

But  of  all  the  countries  in  which  he  resided  he  grew 
to  be  fondest  of  Italy.  This  was  partly  due  to  the  fact 
that  there  he  could  indulge  to  the  full  extent  two  pas 
sions  that  had  come  to  be  a  part  of  his  nature  —  the  love 
of  fine  skies,  and  of  beautiful  scenery.  His  feelings  in 
regard  to  this  country  and  to  France  he  expressed  on 
one  occasion  with  a  courtliness  that  was  wholly  free 
from  the  insincerity  of  the  courtier's  art.  In  November, 
1830,  shortly  after  his  return  to  Paris  from  Germany, 
he  was  presented  to  the  royal  family.  The  Queen  of 
Louis  Philippe,  who  was  the  daughter  of  Ferdinand  L, 


70  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

of  the  Two  Sicilies,  asked  him  of  all  the  lands  visited 
by  him  which  he  most  preferred.  "  That  in  which  your 
majesty  was  born,"  was  the  reply,  "  for  its  nature,  and 
that  in  which  your  majesty  reigns  for  its  society." 
There  was  not  in  this  the  slightest  compliment,  if  by 
compliment  anything  is  meant  inconsistent  with  the 
severest  truth.  "Switzerland,"  he  said  afterward,  "is 
the  country  to  astonish  and  sometimes  to  delight ;  but 
Italy  is  the  land  to  love."  During  the  nearly  two 
years  he  remained  there,  its  scenery,  its  climate,  its 
recollections,  and  also  its  people,  were  constantly  gain 
ing  a  hold  upon  his  heart.  No  country  did  he  ever 
leave  with  so  much  regret ;  and  when  he  came  to  take 
his  final  departure,  his  feelings  were  such  as  are  experi 
enced  by  him  who  is  on  the  point  of  bidding  farewell 
to  a  much-loved  home.  When  he  passed  into  the 
valley  of  the  Adige  on  his  journey  to  the  Tyrol,  in 
1830,  he  reversed  the  usual  practice  of  the  traveler 
who  has  his  eyes  fixed  only  on  what  is  to  come.  He 
turned  around  to  cast  a  last  lingering  glance  at  the  land 
he  was  about  to  leave  behind.  Italy  was  the  only 
country,  his  wife  told  him,  that  she  had  ever  known 
him  to  quit  looking  over  the  shoulder.  His  regard  for 
the  people  was,  perhaps,  intensified  by  the  reaction 
against  the  estimation  in  which  he  had  been  wont  to 
hold  them.  "  The  vulgar-minded  English,"  —  he  said  in 
one  of  those  deliciously  irritating  and  double-acting 
sentences  he  was  afterward  in  the  habit  of  frequently 
uttering  —  "talk  of  the  damned  Italians,  and  the  vulgar- 
minded  American,  quite  in  rule,  imitates  his  great 
model."  Certainly  his  prejudices  against  the  inhab 
itants  of  that  country  were  soon  swept  away.  He  con 
trasted  them  favorably  with  all  their  neighbors.  They 


RESIDENCE  IN  EUROPE.  71 

were'  more  gracious  than  the  English,  more  sincere 
than  the  French,  and  infinitely  more  refined  than  the 
Germans.  In  grace  of  mind,  and  in  love,  and  even 
knowledge  of  the  arts,  a  large  portion  of  the  common 
Italians  were,  in  his  opinion,  as  much  superior  to  the 
Anglo-Saxons  as  civilization  is  to  barbarism.  He  came 
in  time  to  have  a  sort  of  fondness  even  for  the  profes 
sional  mendicants.  He  furnishes  us  a  curious  picture 
of  the  beggars  who  assembled  about  his  residence  daily 
in  Sorrento,  to  whom  he  invariably  gave  a  grano  apiece. 
The  company,  starting  out  from  one  or  two,  had  been 
steadily  reinforced  by  recruits  from  far  and  near,  till 
it  ran  up  to  the  neighborhood  of  a  hundred  men,  who 
regularly  presented  themselves  for  their  pittance.  There 
is  no  more  graphic  description  in  his  writings  than  his 
account  of  the  scene  which  took  place  when  a  new-comer 
amorg  the  beggars  had  the  indiscretion,  on  receiving  his 
grano,  to  wish  the  giver  only  a  hundred  years  of  life ; 
the  indignation  of  the  king  of  the  gang  at  this  exhibi 
tion  of  black  ingratitude ;  the  tumult  with  which  the 
blunder  was  corrected,  and  the  shouts  and  outcries  with 
which  the  pitiful  hundred  was  changed  into  a  thousand 
years,  and  long  ones  at  that. 

During  this  time  his  literary  activity  was  unceasing. 
Before  the  close  of  1830  he  had  completed  four  novels : 
"  The  Prairie,"  "  The  Eed'Rover,"  "  The  Wept  of  Wish- 
ton- Wish,"  and  "  The  Water  Witch,"  —  all  of  which  were 
devoted  to  the  delineation  of  scenes  and  characters  be 
longing  to  his  native  land.  Before  he  started  for  Europe 
he  had  begun  a  new  Indian  story.  This  was  finished 
during  his  early  residence  in  Paris.  He  had  felt  it  to 
be  a  hazardous  venture  to  bring  into  "  The  Last  of  the 
Mohicans "  the  personages  who  had  been  previously 


72  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE   COOPER. 

drawn  in  "  The  Pioneers."  But  so  great  had  been  his 
J>  success,  and  so  strongly  had  the  characters  taken  hold 
»  of  him,  that  he  determined  to  renew  the  experiment  for 

(a  third  time.  Leather-Stocking,  accordingly,  was  intro 
duced  as  living  in  extreme  old  age  on  the  Western 
prairies,  and  the  book  ends  with  his  death.  The  idea  of 
transferring  the  home  of  the  worn-out  hunter  to  these 
vast  solitudes  was  suggested,  it  is  fair  to  infer  from 
Cooper's  own  words,  by  the  actual  career  of  Daniel 
Boone,  the  Kentucky  pioneer.  The  simple  story  of 
this  man's  life  was  sufficiently  remarkable;  but  in  the 
exaggerated  accounts  of  it  that  were  then  current,  he 
was  represented  as  having  emigrated,  in  his  ninety- 
second  year,  to  an  estate  three  hundred  miles  west  of 
the  Mississippi,  because  he  found  a  population  of  ten  to 
the  square  mile  inconveniently  crowded. 

On  the  17th  of  May,  1827,  "The  Prairie"  was  pub- 
^  lished.     It  did  not  meet  with  the  extraordinary  success 
\  of  "  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,"  nor  has  it  ever  been  as 
great  a  favorite  with  the  general  public.    It  was  written 
J  in  a  far  more  quiet  and  subdued  vein.     It  never  keeps 
f  up  that  prolonged  strain  upon  the  feelings  which  char 
acterizes  the  work  that  preceded  it,  and  which  while  a 
defect  in  the  eyes  of  some  is  to  most  readers  its  special 
charm.     There  are,  indeed,  in  many  of  Cooper's  stories, 
situations  more  thrilling  and  scenes  more  stirring  than 
can  be  found  in  "  The  Prairie,"  though  in  it  there  is  no 
lack  of  these.     But  of  all  his  tales  it  is  much  the  most 
poetical.     Man  sinks  into  insignificance  in  the  presence 
of   these  mighty  solitudes  ;  for  throughout   the  whole 
book  the  immensity  of  nature   hangs   over  the  spirit 
like  a  pall.  .  Nor  were  the  characters  of  the  principal 
personages  out  of  harmony  with  the  atmosphere  that 


RESIDENCE  IN  EUROPE.  73 

envelopes  the  scenes  described.     In  the  lonely  hunter, 
notv  nearing   his  grave,  there  is  a  pathetic  grandeur, 
which  is  a  natural  development,  and  not  an  artificial 
addition.     Though  he  has  hurried  as  far  away  as  possi 
ble  from  the  din  of   the  settlements,  he  is  no  longer 
querulous  and  irritable  as  in  his  old  age  in  the  Otsego 
hills.      lie    has   learned   to    recognize   the   inevitable. 
While  he  does  not  cease  to  regret,  he  has  ceased  to 
denounce.      He   knows   that   the   majestic   solitude  of 
nature  will  not  long  remain  undisturbed,  nor  its  more 
majestic  silence  unbroken;  for  in  every  wind  that  blows 
from  the  East  he  hears  the  sound  of  axes  and  the  crash 
of  falling  trees  that  herald  the  march  of  civilization 
across  the  continent.     He  sorrows  at  the  ruin  impend 
ing  on  all  that  is  dearest  to  his  heart ;  but  he  awaits  it 
in  dignified  submission.     In  fine  contrast  to  him  stands 
the  man  who  has  likewise  sought  the  solitude  of  the 
wilderness,  not  because  he  loves  the  beauty  and  the 
majesty  of  primeval  nature,  but  because  he  hates  the 
restraints  that  human  society  has  thrown  about  the  in 
dulgence  of  human  passions.     Criticism  has  rarely  done/ 
justice  to  the  skill  and  power  with  which  Cooper  has\ 
drawn  the  squatter  of  the  prairies,  who  holds  that  land  ( 
should  be  as  free  as  air  ;  who  has  traveled  hundreds  of  J 
miles  beyond  the  Mississippi  to  reach  a  place  where  C 
title-deeds   are    not    registered   and   sheriffs   m&ke   no  / 
levies ;  who  neither  fears  God  nor  regards  man ;   to    j 
whom  the  rule  of  the  rifle  is  the  supremest  law ;  and   ( 
yet  who,   with  all    his  detestation    of   the    safeguards    ) 
which  society  has  erected  for  its  security,  has  a  moral    ^ 
code  and  a  rough  wild  justice  of  his  own.  .-- 

"  The  Prairie  "  was  followed  by  "  The  Red  Rover," 
which  came  out  on  the  9th  of  January,  1828.     During 


74  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

the  years  that  followed  the  publication  of  "  The  Pilot," 
the  reputation  of  that  work  had  been  steadily  increas 
ing.  Time  had  more  than  confirmed  the  first  favorable 
impression.  Not  only  had  any  lingering  prejudice 
against  the  sea-story  as  a  story  been  entirely  swept 
away,  but  tales  of  this  kind  were  beginning  to  be  the 
fashion.  Imitators  were  springing  up  everywhere.  It 
was  natural,  therefore,  for  Cooper  to  turn  his  attention 
once  more  to  a  kind  of  fiction  to  the  composition  of 
which  he  himself  had  originally  opened  the  way.  After 
leaving  the  navy  he  had  become  one  of  the  owners  of  a 
whaling  vessel,  and  in  it  had  made  one  or  two  voyages 
to  Newport.  In  the  harbor  of  that  place  he  fixed  the 
introduction  of  his  new  story  of  the  sea.  He  had  taken 
up  his  residence  during  the  summer  of  1827  in  the  little 
hamlet  of  St.  Ouen  on  the  Seine,  not  far  from  Paris. 
There,  in  the  space  of  three  or  four  months,  "  The  Red 
Rover  "  was  written.  From  the  date  of  its  appearance 
to  the  present  time  it  has  always  been  justly  one  of  the 
most  popular  of  his  productions,  and  perhaps,  considered 
as  a  whole,  stands  at  the  head  of  his  sea-tales. 

On  the  6th  of  November,  1829,  succeeded  an  Indian 
story  of  King  Philip's  war,  under  the  name  of  "  The 
Wept  of  Wish-ton- Wish."  The  fanciful  title  puzzled, 
and  did  not  altogether  please,  the  public.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  it  was  used  only  in  this  country.  In  England 
the  novel  was  called  "  The  Borderers ; "  in  France 
"  The  Puritans  of  America,  or  the  Valley  of  Wish-ton- 
Wish."  This  work  was  begun  during  his  residence  in 
Switzerland  in  1828,  and  was  completed  at  Florence. 
It  has  never  been  popular,  particularly  in  America. 
The  tale  is  a  tragic  one  throughout,  and  the  prevailing 
air  of  sombreness  is  rarely  lightened  by  any  success  in 


RESIDENCE  IN  EUROPE.  75 

the  management  of  minor  incidents.  The  introduction 
too  was  marked  by  one  of  Cooper's  besetting  faults, 
intolerable  prolixity.  But  the  main  cause  of  his  failure 
lay  in  his  inability  to  delineate  the  Puritan  character. 
It  was  not  knowledge  that  was  wanting,  it  was  sympa 
thy  ;  or  perhaps  it  is  better  to  say  that  it  was  his  lack 
of  sympathy  which  prevented  his  having  any  genuine 
knowledge.  He  tried  in  all  honesty  to  depict  the  men 
who  had  founded  New  England,  the  men  of  hard  heads 
and  iron  hearts,  in  whom  piety  and  pugnacity  were,  as 
in  himself,  so  intimately  blended  that  the  transition 
from  the  one  to  the  other  is  a  vanishing  line  whose  dis 
covery  defies  the  closest  scrutiny.  Paradoxical  as  the 
assertion  may  seem,  he  was  too  much  like  the  Puritans 
to  do  them  justice.  His  character  was  essentially  the 
same  as  their  own ;  but  the  influences  under  which  he 
had  been  trained  were  altogether  different.  Upon  their 
manners,  their  ideas,  and  even  their  appearance  he  had 
early  learned  to  look  with  aversion  ;  and  he  had  not  the 
power  to  project  his  mind  out  of  the  circle  of  notions 
and  prejudices  in  which  he  had  been  brought  up.  The 
very  name  of  the  Reverend  Meek  Wolf  which  he  be 
stowed  in  this  story  upon  his  clergyman,  revealed  of  it 
self  the  existence  of  feelings  which  put  him  at  once  out 
of  that  pale  of  sympathetic  thought,  which  enables  the 
novelist  or  historian  to  look  with  the  insight  of  the 
spirit  upon  men  and  motives  which  his  intellect  acting 
by  itself  would  prompt  him  to  distrust  and  dislike. 

To  this  tale  succeeded  "  The  Water  Witch."  This 
was  begun  at  Sorrento  and  finished  at  Rome,  a  city 
which  he  subsequently  used  often  to  speak  of  as  the 
precise  moral  antipodes  of  the  capital  of  the  New 
World,  in  the  harbor  of  which  he  had  laid  much  of  the 


76  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

scene  of  this  story.  It  was  not  till  he  reached  Dres 
den,  however,  that  he  was  enabled  to  have  it  put  in 
print.  On  the  llth  of  December,  1830,  it  made  its 
appearance  in  this  country.  With  it  ended  for  a  time 
his  fictions  that  dealt  with  American  life  and  manners. 
He  now  turned  to  new  fields  and  wrote  with  different 
aims. 

During  all  these  years  his  popularity  had  continued 
unabated,  though  his  last  two  novels  could  hardly  be 
said  to  have  met  with  the  favor  which  had  been  ac 
corded  to  most  of  those  which  had  preceded  them.  It 
is  certainly  a  convincing  proof  of  the  wide  reputation 
he  had  gained  before  he  went  to  Europe,  that  five  edi 
tions  of  "  The  Prairie,"  the  first  work  he  wrote  after  his 
arrival,  were  arranged  to  be  published  at  the  same  time. 
Two  were  to  come  out  in  Paris,  one  in  French  and  one 
in  English ;  one  in  London ;  one  in  Berlin ;  and  one  in 
Philadelphia.  But  even  this  success  was  soon  surpassed. 
It  is  hard  to  credit  the  accounts  that  are  given  on  unim 
peachable  testimony.  One  statement,  however,  is  too 
important  to  be  overlooked,  coming  from  the  source  it 
does.  In  the  controversy  going  on  in  this  country  in 
1833,  in  regard  to  the  part  Cooper  had  taken  in  the 
finance  discussion,  which  will  be  mentioned  in  its  proper 
place,  Morse,  the  inventor  of  the  electric  telegraph,  pub 
lished  a  letter  in  defense  of  his  absent  friend.  In  it  he 
bore  witness  in  the  following  words  to  the  popularity 
of  the  novelist  in  the  Old  World :  "  I  have  visited,  in 
Europe,  many  countries,"  said  he,  "  and  what  I  have 
asserted  of  the  fame  of  Mr.  Cooper  I  assert  from  per 
sonal  knowledge.  In  every  city  of  Europe  that  I  visited 
the  works  of  Cooper  were  conspicuously  placed  in  the 


RESIDENCE  IN  EUROPE. 


77 


windows  of  every  bookshop.  They  are  published  as 
soon  as  he  produces  them  in  thirty-four  different  places 
in  Europe.  They  have  been  seen  by  American  travel 
ers  in  the  languages  of  Turkey  and  Persia,  in  Constan 
tinople,  in  Egypt,  at  Jerusalem,  at  Ispahan." 


0*  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


CHAPTER  V. 

1830. 

THE  month  of  December,  1830,  which  saw  the  publi 
cation  of  "  The  Water  Witch,"  closed  the  first  and  far  the 
most  fortunate  decade  of  Cooper's  literary  life.  In  the 
decade  which  followed  began  that  career  of  controversy 
which  lasted,  with  little  intermission,  until  his  death. 
By  it  his  reputation  and  his  fortunes  were  profoundly 
affected.  It  worked  a  complete  revolution  both  in  the 
sentiments  with  which  he  regarded  others,  and  in  the 
sentiments  with  which  others  regarded  him.  The  most 
intense  lover  of  his  country,  he  became  the  most  unpopu 
lar  man  of  letters  to  whom  it  has  ever  given  birth.  For 
years  a  storm  of  abuse  fell  upon  him,  which  for  violence, 
for  virulence,  and  even  for  malignity,  surpassed  any 
thing  in  the  history  of  American  literature,  if  not  in  the 
history  of  literature  itself.  Nor  did  the  effect  of  this 
disappear  with  his  life.  The  misrepresentations  and  cal 
umnies,  which  were  then  set  in  motion,  have  not  ceased 
to  operate  even  at  this  day.  Full  as  marked,  stili,  was 
the  influence  which  the  controversies,  in  which  he  was 
engaged,  had  upon  his  literary  reputation.  A  direct  re 
sult  of  them  at  the  time  was  not  only  to  impair  the  es 
timation  in  which  his  previous  writings  had  been  held, 
but  to  cause  the  later  productions  of  his  pen  to  be 
treated  with  systematic  injustice.  Both  in  England  and 
America  the  effect  of  this  hostile  criticism  has  not  yet 
died  away. 


EUROPEAN  ESTIMATE  OF  AMERICA.  79 

On  the  other  hand,  it  was  no  one-sided  contest  that  took 
place.  If  Cooper  was  attacked,  he,  in  turn,  did  his  part 
in  attacking.  No  man  has  ever  criticised  his  own  coun 
try  more  unsparingly,  and  in  some  instances  more  un 
justly,  than  did  he,  who,  in  foreign  lands,  had  been  its 
stoutest  and  most  pronounced  defender.  Nor,  in  the 
controversies  that  followed  his  return  from  Europe,  did 
one  side  conduct  itself  with  perfect  righteousness,  and 
the  other  with  deliberate  villainy.  Had  the  parties  but 
seen  fit  to  act  in  this  manner,  the  duties  of  a  biographer 
would  have  been  sensibly  lightened.  A  fair  and  dispas 
sionate  account  of  the  circumstances  that  led  to  the  un 
popularity  which  clouded,  though  it  could  hardly  be 
said  to  darken,  Cooper's  later  life,  demands  a  full  and 
careful  examination  of  many  facts  which,  in  some  in 
stances,  seem  to  have  no  relation  to  the  subject.  Espe 
cially  is  a  knowledge  of  the  European  estimate  of  Amer 
ica  during  the  period  that  the  novelist  resided  abroad  a 
matter  of  first  importance.  But  even  of  as  great  impor 
tance  is  a  knowledge  of  certain  traits  of  his  character 
and  of  certain  sentiments  which  he  strongly  felt,  and 
of  certain  beliefs  which  he  earnestly  held.  To  bring 
out  these  points  clearly,  it  is  necessary  for  a  while  to 
arrest  the  progress  of  the  narrative. 

It  is  to  be  remarked  at  the  outset  that  the  first  im 
pression  which  Cooper  made  upon  strangers  was  rarely 
in  his  favor.  To  this  we  have  the  concurrent  testimony 
of  those  who  knew  him  slightly,  and  of  those  who  knew 
him  well.  It  was  due  to  a  variety  of  causes.  He  had 
infinite  pride,  and  there  was  in  his  manner  a  self-asser 
tion  that  often  bordered,  or  seemed  to  border,  upon  arro 
gance.  His  earnestness,  moreover,  was  often  mistaken 
for  brusqueness  and  violence  ;  for  he  was,  in  some  meas- 


80  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE   COOPER. 

ure,  of  that  class  of  men  who  appear  to  be  excited  when 
they  are  only  interested.  The  result  was  that  at  first 
he  was  apt  to  repel  rather  than  attract.  Without  refer 
ring  to  other  evidence,  we  need  here  only  to  quote  the 
guarded  statement  of  one  of  his  warmest  friends  in  de 
scribing  the  beginning  of  their  acquaintance.  "  I  re 
member,"  says  Bryant,  "  being  somewhat  startled, 
coming,  as  I  did,  from  the  seclusion  of  a  country  life, 
with  a  certain  emphatic  frankness  in  his  manner  which, 
however,  I  came  at  last  to  like  and  to  admire."  But 
besides  this  he  had  other  characteristics  which,  to  the 
majority  of  men,  could  not  be  agreeable.  Thoroughly 
grounded  in  his  own  convictions,  positive  and  uncompro 
mising  in  the  expression  of  them,  he  had  no  patience 
with  those  —  and  the  number  is  far  from  being  a  small 
one  —  who  embrace  their  views  loosely,  hold  them  half 
heartedly,  or  defend  them  ignorantly.  The  opinions  of 
such  he  was  not  content,  like  most  men  of  ability,  with 
quietly  and  unobtrusively  despising.  The  contempt  he 
felt  he  did  not  pay  sufficient  deference  to  human  nature 
to  hide.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  self-love  of  many 
should  be  offended  by  the  arbitrariness  and  imperious- 
ness  with  which  he  overrode  their  opinions,  and  still 
more  by  the  unequivocal  disdain  manifested  for  them. 
It  must  be  conceded,  also,  that  to  those  for  whom  he 
felt  indifference  or  dislike,  he  had  in  no  slight  degree 
that  capacity  of  making  himself  disagreeable  which 
reaches,  and  then  only  in  rare  instances,  the  ripened 
perfection  of  offensiveness  in  him  who  has  breathed 
from  earliest  youth  the  social  air  of  England.  These 
were  traits  that  were  sure  to  make  him  enemies  in  pri 
vate  life.  In  public  life,  moreover,  the  ardor  of  his  tem 
perament  was  such  as  to  hurry  him  into  controversy  ; 


EUROPEAN  ESTIMATE   OF  AMERICA.  81 

and  the  number  of  those  hostile  to  him  on  personal 
grounds,  was  always  liable  to  receive  accessions  from 
men  who  had  never  seen  him  face  to  face.  No  gage 
of  battle  could  be  thrown  down  which  he  did  not  stand 
ready  to  take  up.  Opposition  only  inflamed  him  ;  it  never 
daunted  him.  He  had  not  the  slightest  particle  of  that 
prudence  which  teaches  a  man  to  keep  out  of  contests  in 
which  he  can  gain  no  advantage,  or  in  which  success  will 
be  only  a  little  less  disastrous  than  defeat.  It  hardly 
needs  to  be  said  that  a  politic  line  of  conduct  is  usually 
the  very  last  which  a  person  of  such  a  temperament  fol 
lows.  But  when  to  all  these  characteristics  is  added  a 
peculiar  sensitiveness  to  criticism,  it  is  evident  that  if 
proper  opportunities  are  offered,  personal  unpopularity 
will  be  certain  to  result  from  the  ample  materials  exist 
ing  for  its  development. 

Against  this  view  of  his  character,  it  is  fair  to  add 
here  that  he  had  many  qualities  which  would  tend  to 
bring  about  an  entirely  opposite  result.  Pie  was  more 
than  ordinarily  generous  ;  and  gave  with  a  liberality 
that  went  at  times  beyond  what  most  men  would  look 
upon  as  prudence.  He  was  prompt  to  relieve  merit  that 
stood  in  need  of  help.  Many  cases  of  this  kind  there  are 
unpublished  and  unknown  out  of  a  very  small  circle  ;  for 
Cooper  was  not  one  to  let  his  left  hand  know  what  his 
right  hand  was  doing.  One  fact,  however,  has  been  so 
often  mentioned,  that  it  is  violating  no  sanctity  of  pri 
vate  life  to  repeat  it  here.  He  was  the  first  to  dis 
cover  the  excellence  of  Greenough  and  to  make  that 
sculptor  known  to  his  countrymen.  "  Fenimore  Cooper 
saved  me  from  despair,"  wrote  the  latter  in  1833,  "after 
my  second  return  to  Italy.  He  employed  me  as  I 
wished  to  be  employed ;  and  has  up  to  this  moment 


82  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

been  a  father  to  me  in  kindness."  To  this  generosity,  it 
is  to  be  added  that  his  sense  of  personal  honor  was  of 
the  loftiest  kind.  It  was  sometimes,  indeed,  carried  to 
an  extreme  almost  Quixotic ;  so  that  men  morally  fat- 
witted  could  not  even  comprehend  his  principles  of 
action,  and  men  who  contented  themselves  with  conven 
tional  morality  resented  his  assertion  of  them  as  a  re 
flection  upon  themselves.  His  loyalty  to  those  who 
had  become  dear  to  him  was,  moreover,  just  as  conspic 
uous  as  his  loyalty  to  what  he  deemed  right.  It  with 
stood  every  chance  of  change,  every  accident  of  time 
and  circumstance,  and  only  gave  way  on  absolute  proof 
of  unworthiness.  Intimate  acquaintance  was  sure  to 
bring  to  Cooper  respect,  admiration,  and  finally  affec- 
'tion.  Few  men  have  stood  better  than  he  that  final  test 
of  excellence  which  rests  upon  the  fact  that  those  who 
knew  him  best  loved  him  most.  Yet  even  these  were 
often  forced  to  admit,  that  it  was  necessary  to  know  him 
well  to  appreciate  how  generous,  how  true,  and  how 
lofty-minded  he  was. 

Besides  these  traits  of  character,  it  is  important  to  un 
derstand  some  of  Cooper's  political  and  social  opinions. 
He  was  an  aristocrat  in  feeling,  and  a  democrat  by  con 
viction.  To  some  this  seems  a  combination  so  unnat 
ural  that  they  find  it  hard  to  comprehend  it.  That  a 
man  whose  tastes  and  sympathies  and  station  connect 
him  with  the  highest  class,  and  to  whom  contact  with 
the  uneducated  and  unrefined  brings  with  it  a  sense  of 
personal  discomfort  and  often  of  disgust,  should  avow 
his  belief  in  the  political  rights  of  those  socially  inferior, 
should  be  unwilling  to  deny  them  privileges  which 
he  claims  for  himself,  is  something  so  appalling  to  many 
that  their  minds  strive  vainly  to  grasp  it.  But  this  feel- 


EUROPEAN  ESTIMATE   OF  AMERICA.  83 

ing  was  so  thoroughly  wrought  into  Cooper's  nature 
that  he  almost  disliked  those  of  his  countrymen  whom 
he*foimd  not  to  share  in  it.  "I  confess,"  he  wrote  at 
the  time  when  he  was-  generally  denounced  as  an  aristo 
crat,  "  that  I  now  feel  mortified  and  grieved  when  I 
meet  with  an  American  gentleman  who  professes  any 
thing  but  liberal  opinions  as  respects  the  rights  of  his 
fellow-creatures."  He  went  on  to  explain  that  by  lib 
eral  opinions  he  meant u  the  generous,  manly  determina 
tion  to  let  all  enjoy  equal  political  rights,  and  to  bring 
those  to  whom  authority  is  necessarily  confided  under 
the  control  of  the  community  they  serve."  He  despised 
the  cant  that  the  people  were  theiF  own  worst  enemies. 
So  far  from  it,  he  believed  in  widening  the  foundations 
of  society  by  making  representation  as  real  as  possible, 
and  thereby  giving  to  every  interest  in  the  state  its  fair 
measure  of  power ;  for  no  government,  in  his  eyes, 
could  ever  be  just  or  pure  in  which  the  governors  have 
interests  distinct  from  those  of  the  governed.  These 
opinions  he  put  sometimes  in  an  extreme  form.  "  I 
have  never  yet  been  in  a  country,"  he  said,  "  in  which 
what  are  called  the  lower  orders  have  not  clearer  and 
sounder  views  than  their  betters,  of  the  great  principles 
which  ought  to  predominate  in  the  control  of  human  af 
fairs."  At  the  same  time  his  belief  in  democracy  was 
not  in  the  least  one  of  unmixed  admiration.  He  was 
far  from  looking  upon  it  as  a  perfect  form  of  govern 
ment.  It  was  only  the  one  that,  taking  all  things  into 
consideration,  was  attended  with  fewer  evils  and  greater 
advantages  than  any  other.  It  had  faults  and  dangers 
peculiar  to  itself.  His  liberal  opinions,  he  took  frequent 
care  to  say,  had  nothing  in  common  with  the  devices  of 
demagogues  who  teach  the  doctrine,  that  the  voice  of 


84  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

the  people  is  the  voice  of  God ;  that  the  aggregation  of 
fallible  parts,  acting,  too,  with  diminished  responsibili 
ties,  forms  an  infallible  whole. 

Along  with  this  clear  understanding  of  the  advantages 
and  disadvantages  of  democracy  there  was  mingled,  how 
ever,  a  weakness  of  feeling  on  the  subject  of  position, 
which  occasionally  degenerated  into  an  almost  ridicu 
lous  pettiness.  This  was  especially  true  of  his  later 
life.  His  utterances  were  sometimes  so  apparently  con 
tradictory,  however,  that  it  is  hard  to  tell  whether  justice 
has  been  done  to  his  real  meaning  on  account  of  the  dif 
ficulty  of  ascertaining  what  his  real  meaning  was.  But 
he  spoke  often  of  "  the  gentry  of  America,"  as  if  there 
were  or  could  be  here  a  class  of  gentlemen  outside  and 
independent  of  those  engaged  in  professions  or  occupa 
tions.  He  seemed  at  times  to  attach  that  supreme  impor 
tance  to  descent  which  we  are  usually  accustomed  to  see 
exhibited  in  this  country  only  by  those  who  have  little  or 
nothing  else  to  boast  of.  His  contempt  of  trade  and  of 
those  employed  in  it  had  frequently  about  its  expression 
a  spice  of  affectation.  Moreover,  he  subjected  himself 
to  much  misrepresentation  and  ill-will  by  the  manner 
in  which  he  lectured  his  countrymen  on  the  distinctions 
that  must  prevail  in  society.  There  are  certain  things 
which  are  everywhere  recognized  and  quietly  accepted  : 
they  only  become  offensive  when  proclaimed.  A  man 
may  unhesitatingly  acquiesce  in  his  inferiority,  socially, 
to  one  who  is  politically  only  his  equal ;  but  he  will  very 
naturally  resent  a  reference,  by  the  latter,  to  the  fact  of 
his  social  inferiority.  A  good  deal  of  Cooper's  later 
writings  was  deformed  by  solemn  commonplaces  on  the 
inevitable  necessity  of  the  existence  of  class  distinctions. 
This  drew  upon  him  the  condemnation  of  many  who 


EUROPEAN  ESTIMATE   OF  AMERICA.  85 

did  not  look  upon  the  expression  of  such  views  as  an  of 
fense  against  truth,  but  as  an  offense  against  good  man 
ners.  To  correct  the  folly  of  fools  was  itself  folly  ;  and 
wise  men,  no  matter  what  their  station  in  life,  did  not 
thank  him  for  the  instruction,  the  very  giving  of  which 
implied  an  insult  to  their  intelligence.  His  remarks  on 
the  subject  were  never  heeded,  if  indeed  they  were  ever 
read,  by  those  for  whom  they  were  specially  designed. 
But  to  his  enemies  they  furnished  ample  opportunities 
for  misrepresentation  and  abuse. 

But  any  account  of  Cooper  would  be  of  slight  value 
that  failed  to  take  notice  of  his  love  of  country.  No 
other  man  of  letters  has  there  been  in  America,  or  per 
haps  in  any  other  land,  to  whom  this  has  been  a  pas 
sion  so  absorbing.  It  entered  into  the  very  deepest 
feelings  of  his  heart.  Even  in  the  storm  of  calumny, 
which  fell  upon  him  in  his  later  years,  if  the  flame  of 
his  patriotism  seemed  at  times  to  die  away,  any  little 
circumstance  was  sure  to  revive  it  at  once.  No  pro- 
claimer  of  "  manifest  destiny  "  ever  had  more  faith  than 
he  in  the  imperial  greatness  and  grandeur  to  which  the 
republic  was  to  attain.  All  that  in  vulgar  minds  took 
the  shape  of  braggart  boasting,  was  in  his  idealized  and 
glorified  by  his  lofty  conception  of  the  majestic  part 
which  his  country  was  to  play  in  deciding  the  destinies 
of  mankind.  In  spite  of  short-comings  he  deplored,  of 
perils  that  he  feared,  firm  in  his  heart  was  the  convic 
tion  that  here  was  to  be  the  home  of  the  great  new  race 
that  was  to  rule  the  world.  Other  lands  might  look  to 
the  future  with  hope  or  doubt ;  his  own  was  as  sure  of 
it  as  if  it  lay  already  in  its  grasp.  This  was  a  confi 
dence  that  survived  all  changes,  and  despised  all  fore 
bodings.  The  question  of  slavery  certainly  disturbed 


86  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

him,  but  it  did  not  shake  his  trust.  The  prophecies  of 
the  dissolution  of  the  Jljnion,  current  in  Europe,  he 
laughed  to  scorn.  E)ven  in  the  days  oi  nullification  his 
faith  never  wavered  one  jot.  To  'no  one,^oore  justly 
than  to  him,  could  perpetual  thanks  have  beenYofced, 
because  he  never  despaired  of  the  republic. 

Cooper's  lofty  views  of  his  country  he  soon  found 
were  essentially  different  from  those  entertained  abroad. 
The  knowledge  of  America;  even  now  possessed  in  EiK. 
rope  is  not  burdensomely  gireajb.  But  in  1830  its  igno 
rance  was  prodigious ;  and ;  the  nearest  approach  to  in 
terest  was  usually  the  result  of  something  of  that  same 
vague  fear  which  haunted  the -citizens  of  the  Roman 
Empire  at  the  possible  perils  to  civilization  that  might 
lie  hid  in  the  boundless  depths  of  the  German  forests.  / 
On  the  Continent  the  ignorance  was  greater  than  it  w 
in  England,  and  Cooper  had  plenty  of  opportunities 
of  witnessing  the  exhibition  of  it.  In  the  case  of  the 
common  people  he  was  amused  by  it.  That  the  whites 
who  had  emigrated  to  America  had  not  yet  become  en 
tirely  black ;  that  it  was  reasonable  to  expect  that  time, 
while  it  could  not  restore  their  original  hue  to  these 
deteriorated  Europeans  tanned  to  ebony,  might  in  the 
revolution  of  the  suns  elevate  them  to  a  fair  degree  of 
civilization ;  these,  and  similar  sage  opinions,  did  not 
disturb  him  when  uttered  by  the  philosophers  of  the 
lower  classes.  Yet  their  ignorance,  great  as  it  was,  he 
found  not  to  surpass  materially  that  of  men  who  ought 
to  have  known  better,  so  long  as  they  pretended  to 
know  at  all.  That  the  colonies  had  been  settled  by 
convicts,  was  a  common  impression  among  the  best  ed 
ucated.  While  residing  in  Paris  Cooper  had  the  grat 
ification  of  having  his  country  quoted  in  the  French 


EUROPEAN  ESTIMATE  OF  AMERICA.  87 

Chamber  of  Deputies  as  an  example  of  the  possibility  of 
forming  respectable  communities  by  the  transportation 
of  criminals.  Even  men  who  sympathized  with  repub 
lican  institutions,  he  informs  us,  did  not  think  of  denying 
the  fact ;  they  denied  merely  the  inference.  The  brill 
iant  publicist,  Paul  Courier,  had  asserted  it  would  be  as 
unjust  to  reproach  the  modern  Romans  with  being  de 
scendants  of  ravishers  and  robbers,  as  it  would  be  to 
reproach  the  Americans  with  being  descendants  of  con 
victs.  All  could  not  be  expected,  however,  to  be  so  lib 
eral  as  this  constitutional  reformer.  The  gross  vices 
which  in  foreign  opinion  distinguished  the  inhabitants 
of  the  United  States,  were  held  to  be  the  natural  conse 
quences  of  their  settlement  by  felons.  Cooper  subse 
quently  took  care  to  furnish  the  sojis-e£"Tthe  Puritans 
with  ail  needful  information  as  ko  the  light  in  wrhich 
their  fathers  were  viewed  in  Europe.  At 'the  time, 
however,  it  was  far  different  Keenly  sensitive  to  his 
country's  honor,  and  knowing  the  morals  of  his  country 
men  to  be  far  higher  than  those  of  the  men  of  any  other 
land,  derogatory  statements  of  this  kind  were  galling  in 
the  extreme. 

But  it  was  the  English  opinion  that  Cooper  resented 
most  bitterly.  This  was  partly  because  he  believed  from 
the  community  of  origin  and  speech  it  ought  to  be  better 
informed,  and  partly  because  he  looked  upon  it  as  re 
sponsible  for  many  of  the  absurd  and  erroneous  impres 
sions  that  prevailed  in  the  rest  of  Europe.  His  feelings 
were  rendered  still  keener  by  the  direct  contact  with 
English  prejudice  which  he  had  personally  during  his 
residence  abroad.  The  attitude  of  the  Continent  to 
wards  America  was  that  of  supreme  ignorance  and  in 
difference.  But  there  was  at^the  time  something  be- 


88  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

sides  that  in  the  attitude  of  England,  so  far  certainly  as 
it  was  represented  by  its  periodical  literature.  In  the 
most  favorable  cases  it  was  supercilious  and  patronizing, 
an  attitude  which  never  permits  the  nation  criticising  to 
understand  the  nation  criticised.  There  was  never  any 
effort  to  penetrate  into  the  real  nature  of  the  social  and 
political  movements  that  were  taking  place  on  this  side 
of  the  water.  Men  were  contented  with  the  examina 
tion  of  mere  external  phenomena,  which,  whether  good 
or  bad  in  themselves,  belonged  to  a  period  of  growth 
and  were  certain  to  pass  away.  Not  the  slightest  sym 
pathy  existed  with  the  feelings  and  aspirations  of  a 
people  closely  allied  in  blood  and  speech,  and  the  lack 
of  desire  involved  the  lack  of  ability  to  enter  into  the 
spirit  of  their  institutions.  There  was  no  idea  that 
there  could  be  other  types  of  character  than  those  found 
on  British  soil,  or  any  room  or  reason  for  the  play  of 
other  social  and  political  forces  than  were  at  work  in 
British  communities. 

At  the  time,  however,  that  Cooper  took  up  his  resi 
dence  in  Europe  there  was  more  than  supercilious  in 
difference  in  the  character  of  English  criticism.  There 
was  steady  misrepresentation  and  abuse,  due  in  a  few 
cases  to  design,  in  more  to  ignorance,  in  most  to  that 
disposition  on  the  part  of  all  men  to  believe  readily 
what  they  wish  ardently.  It  made  little  difference 
whether  the  writer  were  Whig  or  Tory.  If  anything 
the  open  dislike  of  the  latter  was  preferable  to  the 
patronizing  regard  of  the  former.  In  1804  the  poet 
Moore  visited  America.  He  wrote  home  a  number  of 
poetical  epistles,  in  which  he  told  his  friends  that  he 
had  found  us  old  in  our  youth  and  blasted  in  our  prime. 
The  demon  gold  was  running  loose ;  everything  and 


EUROPEAN  ESTIMATE  OF  AMERICA.  89 

everybody  was  corrupt ;  truth,  conscience,  and  virtue 
were  regularly  made  matters  of  barter  and  sale.  A 
succession  of  English  travelers  repeated  from  year  to 
year  the  same  dismal  story,  and  their  statements  were 
caught  up  and  paraded  and  dwelt  upon  in  the  English 
periodical  press.  In  "  The  Quarterly  Review,"  in 
particular,  our  condition  was  constantly  held  up  as  an 
awful  example  of  the  results  of  democratic  institutions 
and  universal  suffrage.  Certain  facts  and  predictions 
had  been  repeated  so  often  that  they  came  to  be  ac 
cepted  and  believed  by  all.  AVe  spoke  a  dialect  of  the 
English  tongue  ;  our  manners  were  bad,  if  we  could  be 
said  to  have  any  at  all ;  loyalty  we  could  know  nothing 
about,  because  we  had  no  king;  religion  we  were  entirely 
devoid  of,  because  there  was  no  established  church ;  the 
federation  was  steadily  tending  towards  monarchy ;  the 
wealthy  were  longing  to  be  nobles ;  and  the  Union  could 
not  last  above  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Worse  than  all, 
intrigue  and  bribery  were  sapping  the  national  life  ;  or 
to  use  a  still  favorite  phrase  of  the  newspapers,  though 
the  repetition  of  a  hundred  years  has  now  made  it  some 
what  stale,  corruption  was  preying  upon  the  vitals  of 
the  republic. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  exaggeration  in  these  state 
ments.  Their  truth  any  one  familiar  with  the  periodical 
literature  of  that  period  will  least  of  all  doubt.  There 
was  a  perfect  agreement  between  those  who  visited  us 
and  described  us  and  those  who  drew  their  description 
from  their  imaginations.  Nothing  distinguished  the 
English  traveler  or  the  English  reviewer  so  much  as 
his  piety,  and  his  profound  conviction  that  religion 
could  not  exist  where  it  was  not  carefully  watched  over 
by  an  established  church.  Besides  this  inevitable  moral 


90  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

^destitution,  we  were  irreclaimably  given  over  to  vulgar 
ity.  Manners  there  could  not  be  in  a  land  abandoned 
to  an  unbridled  democracy.  In  the  most  praiseworthy 
instances  even,  men  lacked  that  repose,  that  fine  tact, 
which  were  found  universally  in  the  higher  orders  in 
the  mother  country.  The  defect  was  ineradicable,  ac 
cording  to  most ;  for  it  had  its  baleful  origin  in  popular 
institutions  themselves.  In  justice  it  must  be  added 
that  there  were  some  who,  in  consequence  of  the 
American  passion  for  traveling,  entertained  a  mild  hope 
that  in  time  this  rudeness  would  wear  away,  and  this 
total  ignorance  of  good  breeding  would  be  enlightened 
by  the  polish  and  refinement  that  would  be  picked  up 
from  the  quantity  to  be  found  scattered  about  foreign 
courts.  The  published  correspondence  of  that  period 
is  delicious  in  its  frankness.  The  Englishman,  writing 
to  his  American  friend,  never  descends  from  his  lofty 
position  of  censor  both  of  great  and  petty  morals.  The 
inferiority  of  manners  in  this  country  is  a  point  insisted 
upon  by  the  former  with  an  assiduity  and  assurance 
that  are  sufficient  of  themselves  to  make  clear  how  high 
was  the  breeding  to  which  he  himself  had  attained.  It 
makes  little  difference  who  write  the  letters.  They  all 
express  the  same  sentiments.  They  all  offer  advice  as 
to  the  best  method  America  can  take  to  retrieve  the 
good  opinion  of  Europe  which  it  has  lost.  They  are  care 
ful  to  say  that  they  entertain  the  kindest  of  feelings  to 
the  United  States ;  that  they  neglect  no  occasion  of  do 
ing  justice  to  the  good  and  wise  that  had  found  there  a 
home.  Unfortunately  these  are  few  in  number;  and 
with  a  lofty  sense  of  justice  they  never  fail  to  express 
disapprobation  in  strong  terms  of  the  vast  amount  to  be 
condemned  in  a  land  which  had  fallen  under  the  sway 


EUROPEAN  ESTIMATE  OF  AMERICA.  91 

of  a  reckless  democracy  and  a  godless  church.  One 
English  gentleman  in  the  British  military  service,  after 
being  some  time  in  this  country,  writes,  after  his  return, 
to  an  American  friend,  and  thus  cheerfully  records  his 
impressions.  "  The  frightful  effects  produced  by  an 
unrestrained  democracy,"  he  says,  "  the  demoralizing 
effects  produced  by  universal  suffrage  never  appeared 
to  me  so  odious  as  they  do  now  by  contrast  with  the 
good  breeding,  the  order  and  mutual  support  which  all 
give  to  each  other  in  this  country,  from  the  highest  to 
the  lowest."  This  letter  belongs  to  the  year  1839,  and 
it  only  continues  a  line  of  remark  common  for  the  half- 
century  previous.  Everything  that  came  from  America, 
if  praised  at  all,  was  praised  with  a  qualification.  Not 
a  compliment  could  be  uttered  of  an  individual  without 
an  implied  disparagement  of  the  land  that  gave  him 
birth.  The  record  of  every  man  who  was  well  received 
in  English  society  will  bear  out  this  assertion.  Scott 
wrote  to  South ey  in  1819,  that  Ticknor  was  "a  won 
drous  fellow  for  romantic  lore  and  antiquarian  research, 
considering  his  country."  Even  words  of  genuine  affec 
tion  were  often  accompanied  with  an  impertinence 
which  has  a  delightfulness  of  its  own  from  the  utter 
unconsciousness  on  the  part  of  the  writer  or  speaker  of 
having  said  anything  out  of  the  way.  They  were  com 
pliments  of  the  kind  which  intimated  that  the  person 
addressed  was  a  sort  of  redeeming  feature  in  a  wild 
waste  of  desert.  "  You  have  taught  us,"  writes  in  1840 
Mrs.  Basil  Montagu  to  Charles  Sunnier,  "  to  thiuk  much 
more  highly  of  your  country  —  from  whom  we  have 
hitherto  seen  no  such  men." 

There  is  nothing  to  be  gained  in  raking  over  at  this 
day   the   ashes   of   dead   controversies    and    revilings. 


92  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

Americans  no  longer  read  the  writings  of  the  kind 
described,  and  Englishmen  Jiave  largely  forgotten  that 
they  were  ever  written.  The  new  commentators  on 
our  habits  and  customs  have  taken  up  a  new  line  of  re 
mark,  and  the  new  prophets  of  woe  foresee  an  entirely 
new  class  of  calamities.  But  it  has  been  necessary  to 
revive  here  the  memory  of  the  old  charges  and  forebod 
ings,  in  order  to  show  the  state  of  feeling  that  would  be 
developed  by  them  in  a  man  of  a  peculiarly  sensitive 
and  proud  nature,  such  as  was  the  subject  of  this  biog 
raphy.  Rubbish  as  they  may  seem  now,  they  were  to  the 
men  of  that  time  a  grievous  sore.  Whatever  may  have 
been  Cooper's  feelings  previously,  it  was  not  until  after 
he  had  resided  for  a  while  in  Europe  that  any  hostility 
towards  England  is  seen  in  his  works.  But  there  it 
soon  began  to  manifest  itself,  though  at  first  rather  in 
the  way  of  defense  than  attack.  As  time  went  on  it  in 
creased  rather  than  diminished.  It  largely  affected  his 
own  fortunes  by  the  personal  hostility  it  provoked  in  re 
turn.  To  some  extent,  without  doubt,  his  oft-repeated 
declaration  was  true,  that  in  the  dependence  then  exist 
ing  here  upon  foreign  opinion,  every  American  author 
held  his  reputation  at  the  mercy  of  the  British  reviewer. 
It  would  be  unjust  to  say  that  it  seemed  at  one  period 
almost  as  if  Cooper  had  sworn  towards  England  undy 
ing  hate.  But  it  is  certainly  a  fact  that  he  gave  utter 
ance  to  his  inmost  feelings  when  he  described  it  as  a 
country  that  cast  a  chill  over  his  affections,  a  country  that 
all  men  respected  but  that  few  men  loved.  Yet  he  had 
I  been  brought  up  in  the  school  of  the  Federalist  party, 
;  in  which  admiration  for  the  literature,  policy,  and  morals 
of  the  motherland  was  taught  as  a  duty ;  in  which  every 
door  was  thrown  open  to  visitors  from  England  as  an  act 


EUROPEAN  ESTIMATE  OF  AMERICA.  93 

of  hospitality  due  to  kinsmen  separated  merely  by  the 
accident  of  position.  He  •  himself  tells  us  how,  an 
ardent  boy  of  seventeen,  he  leaped  for  the  first  time 
upon  the  soil  of  Great  Britain,  feeling  for  it  a  love 
almost  as  devoted  as  that  which  he  bore  the  land  of  his 
birth,  and  looking  upon  every  native  of  it  in  the  light 
of  a  brother.  It  did  not  take  him  long  to  find  out  that 
the  fancied  tie  of  kinship  was  not  recognized,  that  it 
was  even  despised ;  and  that  if  he  made  friends,  it  must 
be  in  spite  of  his  country,  and  not  because  of  it.  His 
connection  with  the  navy  had  also  led  him  to  be  keenly 
sensitive  to  the  injustice  and  indignities  connected  with 
the  impressment  of  seamen.  In  his  first  voyage  in  a 
merchant  ship  he  had  seen  two  native  Americans  taken 
from  the  vessel  and  forced  into  the  British  service. 
His  own  captain  even  had  on  one  occasion  been  seized, 
though  speedily  liberated.  There  had  also  been  an 
attempt  to  press  a  Swede  belonging  to  the  crew,  on  the 
ground  that  his  country  and  England  were  in  alliance, 
and  the  latter  had  therefore  a  right  to  his  help.  These 
were  not  the  acts  to  inspire  devotion  towards  the  people 
who  committed  or  who  authorized  them.  The  keen 
resentment  Cooper  felt  for  the  wrongs  then  perpetrated 
upon  the  American  marine  he  afterward  expressed  in 
his  novels  of  "  Wing-and-Wing  "  and  "  Miles  Walling- 
ford."  He  never  forgot  those  early  experiences.  AYhen 
he  came  to  reside  in  Europe  he  was  as  little  disposed  to 
forgive  the  depreciation  of  his  country  which  he  imputed, 
whether  justly  or  unjustly,  to  English  influence.  Dis 
trust  became  dislike,  and  dislike  deepened  into  hostility. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  with  a  man  of  Cooper's 
nature  the  revulsion  from  his  original  feelings  would 
tend  to  swing  him  to  the  opposite  extreme ;  that,  as  a 


94  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

consequence  of  that,  he  would  often  fancy  insult  where 
none  was  intended,  and  impute  to  design  conduct  that 
was  the  result  of  chance  or  even  of  personal  timidity. 
But  making  full  allowance  for  this  inevitable  source  of 
error,  there  was  plenty  of  reason  furnished  for  offense 
to  a  man  whose  personal  pride  was  equal  to  that  of  the 
whole  British  aristocracy,  and  whose  pride  in  his  country 
exceeded  even  his  personal  pride.  The  ignorant  criti 
cism  which  amused  most  Americans  was  apt  to  make 
him  indignant.  No  compliment,  in  particular,  could  be 
paid  with  safety  to  him  individually  at  the  expense  of 
his  country.  This  was  a  practice,  however,  which  the 
Englishmen  of  that  day  seemed  to  regard  as  the  con 
summate  crown  of  adulation.  Depreciation  of  America 
of  any  sort  he  resented  at  once.  If  conversation  touched 
upon  matters  discreditable  to  the  United  States  —  which 
was  far  from  being  an  uncommon  topic  —  it  was  very 
much  his  practice,  instead  of  listening  to  it  patiently,  to 
bring  up  matters  discreditable  to  Great  Britain.  There 
was  unquestionably  ample  material  on  both  sides  with 
which  each  could  blacken  the  other.  But  while  this 
tended  to  make  the  conversation  less  monotonous,  it 
likewise  tended  to  make  the  converser  less  popular. 
Cooper  lost  early  by  his  bearing  in  English  society 
much  of  the  favor  which  he  had  won  from  his  writings. 
To  this  we  have  positive  evidence.  It  is  specifically 
mentioned  in  the  sketch  of  his  life,  which  along  with  his 
portrait  appeared  in  1831  in  Colburn's  "New  Monthly 
Magazine."  The  article  went  on,  after  mentioning  this 
fact,  to  pay  a  tribute  to  his  somewhat  aggressive  pa 
triotism.  "  Yet  he  seems,"  it  said,  "  to  claim  little  con 
sideration  on  the  score  of  intellectual  greatness ;  he  is 
evidently  prouder  of  his  birth  than  of  his  genius ;  and 


EUROPEAN  ESTIMATE  OF  AMERICA.  95 

looks,  speaks,  and  walks  as  if  he  exulted  more  in  being 
recognized  as  an  American  citizen  than  as  the  author  of 
<  The  Pilot '  and  '  The  Prairie.'  " 

To  a  man  whose  heart  was  thus  full  of  the  future 
glories  of  the  republic,  the  indifference  and  neglect 
with  which  it  was  regarded  could  not  but  be  galling. 
Still  this  was  nothing  to  the  positive  contempt  which 
often  manifested  itself  in  social  slights  that  could  be 
felt  but  could  not  well  be  resented.  This  was  especially 
noticeable  in  the  case  of  the  legations,  the  conduct  of 
which  was  largely  under  the  control  of  the  home  govern 
ment.  The  English  policy  was  here  in  marked  contrast 
to  that  of  Russia,  which,  even  at  that  early  day,  culti 
vated  almost  ostentatiously  friendship  with  America. 
Between  the  legations  of  these  two  countries  there  was 
always  the  best  of  understandings.  The  direct  contrary 
often  prevailed  between  the  ministers  of  Great  Britain 
and  of  the  United  States.  The  influence  of  the  former 
was  frequently  thought  to  be  exerted  to  the  social  injury 
of  the  latter.  Whether  true  or  false,  this  was  generally 
believed.  Cooper  certainly  credited  it  and  looked  for 
ward  to  the  time  when  the  whole  attitude  of  England 
would  be  altered.  We  were  then  less  than  twelve  mill 
ions  in  population ;  but  the  day  would  come  when  we 
should  be  fifty  millions.  The  existing  state  of  things 
would  then  be  changed.  You  and  I  may  not  live  to  see 
it,  he  wrote  substantially  to  his  friends,  but  our  sons  and 
grandsons  will.  They  may  not  like  us  any  better,  but 
they  will  take  care  to  hide  their  feelings.  Strong  resent 
ment  sometimes  drove  him  into  taking  up  positions  he 
would  not  in  his  cooler  moments  have  maintained.  "As 
one  citizen  of  the  republic,"  he  wrote,  "however  in 
significant,  I  have  no  notion  of  being  blackguarded  and 


96  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

vituperated  half  a  century  and  then  cajoled  into  forget- 
fulness  aUthe  suggestion  of  fear  and  expediency,  as  cir 
cumstances  render  our  good-will  of  importance."  Not 
one  of  these  slights  and  insults  would  he  have  the  fifty 
millions  forget.  He  did  not  bear  in  mind  that  fifty 
millions  could  not  afford  to  remember.  It  was  like 
asking  the  man  of  middle  life  to  revenge  upon  the 
sons  the  indignities  which  the  boy  had  received  from 
the  fathers. 

Cooper's  residence  in  England  was  only  for  a  few 
months  during  the  first  half  of  the  year  1828.  With 
his  feelings  towards  that  country  and  with  the  feeling 
entertained  in  it  toward  his  own,  nothing  could  have 
made  his  stay  highly  pleasant.  But  it  is  one  of  the 
numerous  minor  falsehoods  that  came  to  be  connected 
with  his  life,  that  it  was  unpleasant.  On  the  contrary, 
his  company  was  sought  by  many  of  the  most  distin 
guished  men,  though  in  accordance  with  his  usual 
custom  he  carried  no  letters  of  introduction.  At  a 
later  period  he  said  that  in  no  country  had  he  been 
personally  so  well  treated  as  in  England ;  he  was  as 
strongly  convinced  as  his  worst  enemy,  that  as  an  author 
he  had  been  extolled  there  beyond  his  merits ;  nor  had 
he  failed  to  receive  quite  as  much  substantial  remunera 
tion  as  he  could  properly  lay  claim  to.  But  the  social 
atmosphere  there  prevailing  was  not  the  atmosphere  he 
loved.  The  poet  Moore  relates  in  his  diary  a  story  told 
him  by  Sydney  Smith  of  the  "  touchiness "  of  "  the 
Republican  "  —  so  the  American  novelist  is  styled  — 
as  evinced  by  the  indignation  of  the  latter  at  the  con 
duct  of  Lord  Nugent.  This  nobleman,  it  appears,  in 
vited  Cooper  to  take  a  walk  with  him  to  a  certain 
street.  Arriving  there  he  unceremoniously  entered  the 


EUROPEAN  ESTIMATE  OF  AMERICA.  97 

house  of  a  friend  and  left  his  companion  to  make  his 
way  back  alone.  Cooper's  resentment  of  the  treatment 
may  have  been  unwisely  shown ;  for  though  often  termed 
an  aristocrat,  he  never  exhibited  in  the  slightest  degree 
that  reticence  which  is  or  is  supposed  to  be  the  peculiar 
characteristic  of  aristocracy.  But  few  would  now  be 
found  to  deny  that  his  indignation  was  both  natural  and 
just,  and  that  the  act  of  Lord  Nugent  was  the  act  of  a 
boor  and  not  of  a  gentleman.  It  was  certainly  unrea 
sonable  to  expect  that  a  society  which  could  rejoice  in 
this  method  of  rebuking  republican  pretension  could 
itself  be  agreeable  to  a  republican.  Cooper  could  not 
but  be  offended  by  the  prejudices  he  found  existing 
against  his  country  and  the  dislike  usually  felt  and 
sometimes  expressed  for  it.  The  only  man  he  met 
whom  he  thought  well  informed  about  America  was 
Sir  James  Mackintosh.  The  ignorance  of  some  of  his 
friends  was  so  great  that  even  to  him  it  caused  amuse 
ment  rather  than  anger.  Many  readers  will  have  heard 
of  the  practice  of  "gouging,"  with  which,  according  to 
the  veracious  English  traveler  of  early  days,  the  native 
American  gave  the  charm  of  diversity  and  diversion  to 
a  life  whose  serious  thoughts  were  wholly  absorbed  in 
the  acquisition  of  pelf.  Some  will  remember  the  defini 
tion  given  of  it  in  Grose's  "  Dictionary  of  the  Vulgar 
Tongue :  "  "  to  squeeze  out  a  man's  eye  with  the  thumb  ; 
a  cruel  practice  used  by  the  Bostonians  in  America." 
A  curious  illustration  of  the  belief  in  this  myth  occurred 
to  Cooper.  One  of  his  friends  in  England  was  an 
amiable  and  pleasant  man  of  letters,  named  William 
Sotheby,  little  heard  of  in  these  days  ;  and  even  in  his 
own  days  he  had  to  endure  the  double  degradation  of 
being  called  a  small  poet  by  the  small  poets  themselves. 
7 


98         JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

He  was  at  this  time  an  old  gentleman  of  over  seventy, 
and  was  preparing  to  make  a  creditable  close  to  his 
career  by  performing  the  task,  which  seems  to  assume 
the  shape  of  a  duty  to  every  literary  Englishman  of 
leisure,  of  translating  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  Not 
unnaturally  he  was  more  familiar  with  the  way  the 
wrath  of  Achilles  manifested  itself  than  with  the  shape 
taken  by  the  wrath  of  the  men  of  his  race  beyond  the 
sea.  On  one  occasion  he  condoled  with  Cooper  because 
of  the  quarrelsomeness  and  fighting  prevalent  in  Amer 
ica,  making  during  this  expression  of  his  sympathy  an 
obvious  allusion  to  gouging.  It  was  useless  to  attempt 
setting  him  right.  His  interest  in  ancient  fiction  had 
not  been  so  absorbing  as  to  close  his  mind  to  the  ac 
quisition  of  modern  fact ;  and  to  Cooper's  denial  of  what 
•he  had  implied  he  listened  with  a  polite  but  incredulous 
smile. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

1828-1833. 

MISREPRESENTATION  and  abuse  of  his  native  land  it 
was  not  in  Cooper's  nature  to  bear  in  silence.  His 
resentment  for  the  imputations  cast  upon  his  country 
began  to  show  itself  soon  after  he  had  taken  up  his  resi 
dence  abroad.  In  "  The  Red  Rover,"  which  appeared  in 
1827,  there  are  satirical  references  to  the  benevolence 
and  piety  of  the  moral  missionaries  which  England  had 
sent  among  us,  and  to  the  correctness  and  wisdom  of 
current  foreign  opinion.  In  the  next  novel,  "The  Wept 
of  Wish-ton-AYish,"  his  feelings  are  still  more  fully  ex 
pressed.  In  this  work  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  one 
of  the  characters,  a  physician,  an  elaborate  disquisition 
upon  the  degeneracy  of  man  in  America.  In  the  course 
of  it  the  leech  informs  his  opponent  that  the  science 
and  wisdom  and  philosophy  of  Europe  had  been  ex 
ceedingly  active  in  the  investigation  of  this  matter  of 
colonial  inferiority,  that  they  had  proved  to  their  own 
perfect  satisfaction,  which  was  the  same  thing  as  dispos 
ing  of  the  question  without  appeal,  that  man  and  beast, 
plant  and  tree,  hill  and  dale,  lake,  pond,  sun,  air,  fire, 
and  water  were  all  wanting  in  some  of  the  perfectness 
of  the  old  regions.  It  was  plain  we  could  never  hope 
to  reach  the  exalted  excellence  they  enjoy ;  and  while 
he  respected  the  patriotism  that  held  the  contrary  view, 
he  could  not,  out  of  deference  to  it,  afford  to  doubt  what 


100  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

had  been   demonstrated  by   science   and  collected   by 
learning. 

It  was  not  in  this  indirect  way,  however,  that  he 
could  content  himself  with  defending  his  country.  No 
sooner  had  he  lived  in  Europe  long  enough  to  become 
acquainted  with  the  erroneous  impressions  there  preva 
lent,  in  regard  to  America,  than  he  set  out  to  prepare  a 
work  which  should  expose  their  falsity.  In  it  he  de 
termined  to  lay  the  precise  facts  before  a  public  which 
was  indisposed  to  believe  anything  to  the  credit,  and 
disposed  to  believe  everything  to  the  discredit  of  demo 
cratic  institutions.  On  the  face  of  it,  this  was  a  futile 
undertaking,  no  matter  how  praiseworthy  its  motive. 
Nations,  no  more  than  individuals,  are  convinced  by 
what  other  nations  say  of  themselves  ;  it  is  only  by 
what  they  do.  In  this  particular  case  the  difficulty  was 
rendered  more  insurmountable  by  the  fact  that  these  er 
roneous  impressions  prevailed  among  those  who  did  not 
care  enough  about  the  matter  to  investigate  it  seriously, 
and  who  would  be  certain  in  most  cases  to  refrain  from 
investigating  it  at  all,  had  they  a  suspicion  that  their 
preconceived  beliefs  would  be  overthrown  or  even 
shaken,  as  a  result  of  their  examination.  The  question 
naturally  arises,  whether  such  men  could  be  convinced 
by  facts  and  arguments,  and  if  so,  whether  they  were 
worth  the  trouble  of  convincing.  Why  grudge  the  ad 
herents  of  a  dying  cause  the  dismal  enjoyment  they  re 
ceive  from  contemplating  the  ruin  that  is  always  being 
wrought,  or  is  always  to  be  wrought,  by  Democracy  to 
Democracy  ?  Experience  led  Cooper  subsequently  to 
see  the  uselessness  of  the  experiment  he,  in  this  in 
stance,  tried.  "When  asked  at  a  later  period  why  some 
efforts  were  not  made  to  correct  the  false  notions  prev- 


DEFENSE  OF  AMERICA.  101 

alent  in  Europe  in  regard  to  America,  he  answered  with 
perfect  truth  then,  that  no  favorable  account  would  be 
acceptable ;  that  it  would  not  be  enough  to  confess  our 
real  faults,  but  we  should  be  required  to  confess  the  pre 
cise  faults  that,  according  to  the  opinions  of  that  quarter 
of  the  world,  we  were  morally,  logically,  and  politically 
bound  to  possess.  By  the  wide  circulation  of  his  fic 
tions  he,  in  truth,  did  more  to  remove  wrong  impres 
sions,  dissipate  prejudices,  and  open  the  eyes  of  Europe 
to  a  knowledge  of  American  life  and  manners,  than 
could  have  been  accomplished  by  the  longest  and  most 
ponderous  array  of  indisputable  facts. 

Facts,  however,  he  at  this  time  purposed  to  furnish. 
Accordingly,  on  the  13th  of  August,  1828,  appeared  a 
work  entitled,  "  Notions  of  the  Americans.  Picked  up 
bv  a  Traveling  Bachelor."  Whatever  its  actual  success, 
it  was  a  relative  failure.  Cooper  himself  tells  us  that  it 
occasioned  him  a  heavy  pecuniary  loss.  Manner  and 
matter,  both  foredoomed  it  to  the  fate  which  it  met. 
The  plan  of  it  was  an  unfortunate  one  as  well  as  a 
purely  artificial  one.  The  views  and  observations  and 
statements  of  fact  are  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  Euro 
pean  traveling  bachelor,  a  member  of  a  club  of  cosmop 
olites,  who,  in  consequence  of  meeting  an  American, 
named  Cadwallader,  is  persuaded  to  visit  and  see  for 
himself  the  new  world.  Arriving  there  he  writes  letters 
to  his  friends,  giving  an  account  of  his  impressions. 
The  fiction  of  foreign  authorship  was  the  first  mistake. 
It  could  not  mislead  any  one,  nor  was  it  intended  to 
mislead  any  one.  But  a  grave  didactic  treatise  which 
was  designed  to  convey  a  truthful  impression,  lost  some 
thing  and  gained  nothing  by  being  connected  with  any 
artifice,  even  though  not  meant  to  impose  upon  the 


102  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

reader.  Nor  was  the  work  interesting  to  one  not  spe 
cially  interested  in  the  subject.  To  the  American  it 
gave  the  strongest  assurances  of  loyalty  to  republican 
institutions  on  the  part  of  her  most  widely-known  man 
of  letters  ;  but  it  added  little  or  nothing  to  the  informa 
tion  of  which  he  was  already  in  possession.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  laudatory  style  in  which  this  country 
was  invariably  spoken  of  was  certain  to  be  offensive  to 
those  whom  it  was  the  design  of  the  work  to  enlighten. 
The  weight  of  matter,  moreover,  was  not  rendered  any 
more  endurable  by  lightness  of  treatment.  At  the  pres 
ent  day  the  work  is  chiefly  interesting  for  the  keen  ob 
servations  that  are  found  in  it,  and  for  its  remarks  upon 
the  future  of  the  country  rather  than  upon  its  then  ex 
isting  state.  Cooper's  predictions  were  concerned  with 
the  minutest,  as  well  as  the  greatest  subjects.  They 
ranged  all  the  way  from  the  indefinite  assurance,  that 
New  York  must  eventually  become  the  gastronomic 
capital  of  the  globe,  to  the  precise  statement,  as  to  the 
exact  number  of  the  population  there  would  be  in  the 
United  States  fifty  years  from  the  time  in  which  he  was 
writing.  This  last  prophecy,  it  is  to  be  said,  has  turned 
out  singularly  true.  He  fixed  the  number  at  fifty  mill 
ions.  That  this  was  no  chance  guess,  but  a  carefully 
worked  out  computation,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that 
he  repeats  it  several  times  in  this  work  and  occasionally 
in  later  ones.  He,  moreover,  assigned  definitely  forty- 
three  millions  to  the  whites  and  seven  millions  to  the 
blacks. 

It  is  not  for  an  American  to  find  fault  with  the  laud 
atory  tone  of  a  work  which  reflects  the  ardent  love  of 
country  felt  by  the  writer.  Yet  in  many  respects  it  is 
a  singular  production.  In  manner  it  is  calm,  grave, 


DEFENSE  OF  AMERICA.  103 

almost  philosophical ;  there  is  not  the  slightest  effort  at 
fine  writing ;  the  tone  can  never  be  said  to  be  even  fer 
vid.  Yet  it  must  be  confessed  that  not  in  the  most  ex 
alted  of  Fourth  of  July  orations  does  the  national  eagle 
scream  with  a  shriller  note,  or  wing  his  way  with  a 
more  unflagging  flight.  Any  one  who  formed  his  no 
tions  of  this  country  exclusively  from  this  book,  would 
be  sure  to  fancy  that  here  at  last  paradise  was  reopening 
to  the  children  of  a  fallen  race.  After  this  remark,  it 
may  seem  ridiculous,  and  yet  it  is  perfectly  just  to  say, 
that  Cooper,  so  far  from  giving  way  to  exaggeration  in 
his  assertions,  kept  himself  well  within  the  bounds  of  the 
truth.  In  the  exercise  of  that  duty  which  presses  heav 
ily  upon  every  reviewer,  to  seem,  if  not  to  be  wiser  than 
his  author,  many  of  the  English  periodicals,  even  those 
most  favorable  to  America,  undertook  to  doubt  his 
statements  of  fact,  to  sneer  at  his  prophecies  of  the  fut 
ure  as  ludicrous  exaggerations,  and  to  term  them  strik 
ing  and  whimsical  instances  of  Yankee  braggadocio,  and 
of  the  love  of  building  castles  in  the  air.  Cooper  could 
not  well  overstate  the  material  prosperity  and  progress 
of  the  country,  nor  the  inability  of  men  trained  under 
different  conditions  either  to  believe  it  or  to  comprehend 
it.  Reality  soon  outran  some  of  his  most  daring  antic 
ipations.  His  most  extravagant  statements  were  speed 
ily  more  than  confirmed  by  the  operation  of  agencies 
\vhose  mighty  results  he  could  not  foresee,  because, 
when  he  wrote,  the  agencies  themselves  did  not  exist. 
He  had  carefully  guarded  himself  in  one  instance,  by 
saying  that  he  did  not  expect  that  the  Northwest 
would  be  settled  within  an  early  period.  The  precau 
tion  was  unnecessary.  He  had  been  brought  up  in  a 
town,  founded  in  the  wilderness,  at  a  distance  of  less 


104  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

than  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  the  commercial 
capital  of  the  republic.  He  lived  long  enough  to  see 
the  frontiers  of  civilization  pushed  one  thousand  miles 
west  of  the  line  it  had  held  in  his  boyhood's  home. 

Any  wrong  impression,  therefore,  which  the  work 
conveyed  was  not  due  to  the  spirit  of  braggadocio  per 
vading  it,  as  asserted  and  commented  upon  by  the  Eng 
lish  reviewers.  No  false  statement  was  made  intention 
ally  ;  there  were  very  few  that  were  made  mistakenly. 
But  though  Cooper  purposed  to  tell  nothing  but  truth 
about  his  country,  he  did  not  feel  himself  under  obliga 
tion  to  tell  all  the  truth.  The  attention  was  almost  ex 
clusively  directed  to  that  side  of  the  national  character 
which  lent  itself  most  readily  to  favorable  treatment. 
What  was  unfavorable  was  either  omitted  altogether,  or 
was  very  lightly  passed  over.  One  letter  alone,  and  that 
not  a  long  one,  was  devoted  to  slavery.  It  is  plain  that 
he  was  annoyed  by  it ;  to  some  extent,  in  spite  of  his 
confidence,  disquieted  by  it,  though  the  dangers  he  feared 
were  not  the  dangers  that  actually  came.  Even  at  that 
early  day  there  was  enough  to  trouble  the  lover  of  his 
country  in  the  criticism  it  encountered,  for  the  glaring 
contrast  between  its  professions  of  liberty  and  its  prac 
tice  ;  but  far  more  in  the  dimly-seen  shape  of  that  gigan 
tic  struggle  which,  though  itself  vague  and  undefined,  was 
already  beginning  to  cast  its  lowering  shadow  over  the 
future  of  the  republic.  So  in  a  similar  manner  the  liter 
ature,  architecture,  and  art  of  America  were  passed  over 
in  a  few  pages,  while  letter  after  letter  was  given  up  to 
a  description  of  its  progress  in  wealth  and  comfort.  Yet 
no  one  knew  better  than  Cooper,  —  at  a  later  period  he 
took  care  his  countrymen  should  not  forget  it,  —  that  of 
all  standards  by  which  to  test  national  glory,  the  material 


DEFENSE  OF  AMERICA.  105 

standard  is  in  itself  the  lowest  and  most  vulgar  ;  and 
that  the  difference  in  real  greatness  between  two  places 
can  never  be  measured  by  the  comparative  amount  of 
sugar,  or  salt,  or  flour  sold  in  each.  Yet  he  remem 
bered  then,  what  later  he  seemed  to  forget,  that  the  ne 
cessity  of  conquering  the  continent,  of  making  it  inhab 
itable  for  man,  was  at  the  time  and  must  continue  long 
to  remain  a  very  positive  hindrance  to  the  development 
of  literary  and  artistic  ability,  because  by  the  immense 
rewards  it  offered  it  attracted  to  the  development  of  ma 
terial  resources  the  intellect  and  vigor  of  the  entire 
land. 

Cooper  tells  us,  as  has  been  said,  that  he  lost  money 
on  this  work.  But  there  was  something  more  than  pe 
cuniary  failure  that  attended  it.  There  were  in  it  state 
ments  which  met  with  disfavor  at  home.  More  impor 
tant  than  these,  however,  were  remarks  that  aroused 
personal  hostility  abroad.  He  made  several  references, 
in  particular,  to  the  people  of  England,  and  they  were 
not  of  a  kind  to  conciliate  regard  for  himself  and  his 
work.  In  one  place  he  spoke  of  the  society  of  that 
country  as  being  more  repulsive,  artificial,  and  cumbered, 
and,  in  short,  more  absurd  and  frequently  less  graceful 
than  that  of  any  other  European  nation.  Theoretically, 
the  English  care  nothing  for  foreign  opinion.  They 
have  said  it  so  often  among  themselves  that  most  of 
them  look  upon  it  as  a  point  which  has  been  settled  by 
the  consent  of  mankind.  But  like  many  other  beliefs  it 
has  become  an  article  of  faith  without  having  become 
an  article  of  practice.  To  this  extent  it  is  true  that 
they  care  nothing  for  the  remarks  of  obscure  men  of 
which  they  never  hear.  On  the  other  hand,  no  nation 
is  more  sensitive  to  contemporary  foreign  opinion,  com- 


106  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

ing  from  writers  of  distinction.  There  will  be  plenty 
of  instances  furnished  in  this  one  biography  to  prove 
fully  this  assertion.  Cooper's  attack  was  never  for 
gotten  or  forgiven.  From  this  time  there  was  a  dis- 
/  tinctly  hostile  feeling  manifested  toward  him  in  many 

L of  the  English  periodicals.     Even  before  his  next  work 

appeared,  London  correspondents  of  American  newspa 
pers  announced  that  it  was  going  to  be  severely  criti 
cised,  inasmuch  as  the  novelist  had  made  himself  un 
popular  in  England  by  the  comments  made  and  the 
views  put  forth  in  the  "  Notions  of  the  Americans." 
If  this  were  not  true,  it  was  at  least  believed  to  be  true. 
Certainly  the  fact  of  hostility  steadily  increasing  from 
this  period,  on  the  part  of  the  British  press,  cannot  be  de 
nied,  whatever  we  may  think  of  the  causes  that  brought 
it  about.  Nor  did  it  stop  short  with  depreciation  of 
his  works.  Literary  criticism,  even  if  based  merely 
upon  personal  dislike,  can  always  resort  with  safety  to 
the  cheap  defense  that  it  is  honest.  But  there  were 
reviewers  who  went  farther,  who  framed  for  Cooper  im 
aginary  feelings  and  then  proceeded  to  assail  him  for 
having  them.  He  was  accused,  especially,  of  pluming 
himself  highly  upon  the  title  of  the  "  American  Scott." 
Hazlitt,  for  instance,  seeing  him  strutting,  as  he  terms 
it,  in  the  streets  of  Paris,  was  enabled  to  detect  by  the 
way  the  novelist  walked  the  way  he  felt  upon  this 
special  matter,  and  afterward  to  state  the  conclusion  at 
which  he  had  arrived  as  a  positive  fact.  Similar  speci 
mens  of  fine  critical  insight  into  Cooper's  motives  and 
sentiments  can  be  found  scattered  up  and  down  the 
pages  of  English  journals. 

At    the   time    he    was   bringing   out   "  The    Water 
Witch "  in  Germany,  the  revolution   in  France   took 


DEFENSE  OF  AMERICA.  107 

place  that  resulted  in  the  expulsion  of  the  Bourbons  and 
the  calling  of  Louis  Philippe  to  the  throne.  Paris  be 
came  at  once  the  Mecca  to  which  the  lovers  of  liberty 
throughout  Europe  resorted.  Thither  Cooper  hastened 
from  his  home  in  Dresden.  He  reached  the  city  in  Au 
gust,  1830.  There  he  watched  with  the  profoundest  in 
terest  the  political  movements  that  were  going  on  about 
him.  The  reactionary  tendencies  that  early  began  to 
manifest  themselves  in  the  rule  of  the  Citizen  Kins1, 

o" 

brought  to  him  the  same  disappointment  and  the  same 
disgust  that  it  did  to  all  the  ardent  republicans  of  the 
Old  World.  There  is  much  in  what  he  says  to  remind 
the  reader  of  the  feelings  expressed  by  Heine,  who  had 
likewise  hurried  to  Paris  after  the  July  revolution,  and 
who  was  venting  his  indignation  and  contempt  in  the 
columns  of  the  Augsburg  "  Allgemeine  Zeitung."  Oc 
casional  passages  bear  even  a  close  similarity.  Cooper 
on  one  occasion  describes  Louis  Philippe  walking  about 
among  his  subjects  wearing  a  white  hat,  carrying  a  red 
umbrella,  and  evidently  laboring  to  act  in  an  easy  and 
affable  manner.  "  In  short,"  he  said  in  a  phrase  that 
might  have  been  written  by  the  great  German,  "  he  was 
condescending  with  all  his  might." 

Close  upon  the  revolution  in  France  followed  the  re 
volt  of  Poland.  The  insurrection  lasted  about  ten 
months,  and  during  its  progress  the  feelings  of  Cooper 
were  profoundly  stirred  in  behalf  of  that  people.  With 
this  his  personal  friendship  with  the  Polish  poet,  Mick- 
iewicz,  had  probably  a  great  deal  to  do ;  for  at  Rome  a 
close  intimacy  had  sprung  up  between  him  and  that  au 
thor.  At  a  meeting,  held  in  Paris  on  the  4th  of  July, 
1831,  at  which  Cooper  presided,  a  sum  of  money  was 
contributed  to  aid  the  revolters  in  their  struggle.  He 


108  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE   COOPER. 

presided  also  at  other  meetings  to  advance  the  same 
cause,  and  acted  as  chairman  of  a  committee  to  raise 
funds  to  assist  the  Polish  soldiers  who  were  fighting  for 
independence,  and  when  this  failed,  to  relieve  the  exiles 
in  their  distress.  Two  addresses  to  the  American  people 
signed  by  him  in  his  official  capacity  —  one  written  in 
July,  1831,  and  the  other  in  June,  1832  —  appeared  in 
the  American  papers  of  those  years  ;  and  the  fervor  that 
characterizes  them  both  leaves  little  doubt  as  to  their 
authorship. 

Into  the  great  struggle  going  on  in  Europe,  either 
openly  or  silently  between  aristocracy  and  democracy, 
he  now,  indeed,  threw  himself  with  his  whole  heart.  In 
certain  respects  this  was  a  disadvantage.  Whenever 
Cooper's  feelings  on  political  subjects  were  aroused,  his 
literary  work  betrayed  the  obtrusion  of  interests  more 
dominating  than  those  which  belong  to  it  legitimately. 
This  was  manifested  in  the  three  tales  which  followed. 
In  them  the  scene  of  action  was  not  only  transferred  to 
European  soil,  but  a  direct  attempt  was  avowedly  made 
to  apply  American  principles  to  European  facts.  These 
novels  were  "  The  Bravo,"  which  appeared  November 
29,  1831;  "The  Heidemnauer,"  which  appeared  Sep 
tember  25,  1832 ;  and  "  The  Headsman,"  which  ap 
peared  October  18,  1833.  The  purpose  of  all  these 
was  the  direct  exaltation  of  republican  institutions,  and 
likewise  the  exposure  of  those  which  paraded  in  the 
garb  of  liberty  without  possessing  its  reality.  The 
scenes  of  two  were  accordingly  laid  in  the  aristocratic 
cities  of  Venice  and  of  Berne.  The  first  of  the  three  is 
generally  spoken  of  as  the  best,  especially  by  those  who 
have  read  none  of  them  at  all.  Little  difference  will  be 
found,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  between  "  The  Bravo  "  and 


DEFENSE   OF  AMERICA. 

"  The  Headsman  "  as  regards  literary 
Heidanraauer  "  is,  however,  distinctly  inferior,  and  is  in 
truth  one  of  the  most  tedious  novels  that  Cooper  ever 
wrote.  All  were,  however,  animated  by  the  same  spirit. 
They  all  assailed  oligarchical,  and  lauded  democratic  in 
stitutions.  They  were  full  of  denunciations  of  the  accom 
modating  stupidity  of  patricians  who  were  never  able 
to  see  anything  beneficial  to  the  interests  of  the  state 
in  what  was  injurious  to  the  interests  of  their  own  order. 
In  particular,  the  doctrine  was  held  up  to  derision,  that 
while  to  the  ignorant  and  the  low  there  was  ample 
power  given  to  suffer,  there  was  no  power  given  to  un 
derstand  ;  and  that  consequently  it  was  their  duty  al 
ways  to  obey  and  never  to  criticise. 

In  writing  this  series  Cooper  was  undertaking  what 
was  on  the  face  of  it  a  hazardous  experiment.  The 
peril  was  not,  as  thoughtless  criticism  has  had  it,  in 
transferring  his  scenes  and  characters  to  a  foreign  soil. 
Human  nature  suffers  no  material  change  in  passing 
from  America  to  Europe.  The  danger  lay  in  the  fact 
that  these  were  novels  written  with  a  purpose.  The 
story  was  not  told  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of 
enforcing  certain  political  opinions.  It  required,  there 
fore,  unusual  skill  in  its  construction  and  in  the  manage 
ment  of  its  details.  For  whatever  may  be  the  exact 
truth  contained  in  the  doctrine  of  art  for  art's  sake,  this 
is  certainly  clear,  that  in  a  work  of  fiction  designed  to  ad- 
vance  successfully  any  cause,  or  support  any  theory,  the 
didactic  element  must  be  made  entirely  subordinate  to 
the  purely  creative  element.  Otherwise  we  impart  to 
the  novel  the  tediousness  of  a  homily  without  its  ac 
cepted  authority.  Art  must  be  wooed  as  a  mistress ; 
she  can  never  be  commanded  as  a  slave.  He,  there- 


110  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE  COOPER. 

fore,  who  seeks  to  press  fiction  into  a  work  so  foreign 
to  its  nature  as  the  inculcation  of  political  opinions, 
must,  if  he  hopes  to  succeed,  make  the  story  suggest  the 
lesson  without  conveying  it  obtrusively.  Above  all  is 
there  need  of  delicate  touch  and  skillful  handling,  if  the 
aim  be  to  affect  those  who  are  prejudiced  against  the 
views  expressed,  or  whose  interests  are  involved  in  the 
fate  of  those  attacked.  But  Cooper's  was  never  a  deli 
cate  touch.  What  he  thought  he  never  insinuated  ;  what 
he  believed  himself  he  never  allowed  to  make  its  way  in 
directly  into  the  minds  of  others.  He  always  uttered  it 
boldly,  and  sometimes  offensively.  Effective  this  as 
suredly  is  in  compositions  of  a  certain  class  ;  but  it  is 
entirely  out  of  place  in  a  work  of  fiction.  In  the  case 
of  these  particular  novels  the  purpose  is  avowed  openly 
and  repeatedly.  Cooper,  indeed,  takes  care  never  to  let 
it  escape  the  reader's  attention.  He  may  almost  be  said 
to  stand  by  his  shoulder  to  jog  him  if  he  once  happens 
to  forget  that  the  story  has  a  moral.  American  insti 
tutions,  especially,  were  constantly  held  up  as  models  in 
which  the  best  results  were  seen,  and  which  it  was  the 
policy  of  all  other  countries  to  imitate.  The  course 
taken  was  a  mark  of  patriotism  ;  but  it  was  not  the  way 
to  gain  converts.  It  is,  in  truth,  the  misfortune  of  the 
novelist,  burdened  with  a  moral  purpose,  that  the  reader 
usually  feels  the  burden  and  is  not  affected  by  the 
moral.  It  was  not  by  methods  like  these  that  Scott 
threw  about  chivalry  and  aristocracy  that  glamour  which 
outlasts  the  most  minute  acquaintance  with  the  reality, 
and  influences  the  imagination  in  spite  of  the  protest  of 
the  judgment. 

But  another  result  that  followed  from  writing  novels 
with  a  purpose,  had  a  more  direct  influence  upon  his 


DEFEXSE  OF  AMERICA.  HI 

reputation.  It  made  it  impossible  that  his  work  should 
any  longer  be  criticised  fairly.  This  was  immediately 
seen  in  the  case  of  k*  The  Bravo."  This  novel  had  far 
more  success  in  Europe  than  in  America.  But  the  suc 
cess  was  not  of  a  legitimate  kind.  Parties  were  at  once 
arrayed  for  it  or  against  it,  not  because  it  was  a  good 
or  bad  production  from  a  literary  point  of  view,  but  ac 
cording  as  men  sympathized  with  or  were  hostile  to  the 
political  principles  it  advocated.  It  was  not  the  merit 
of  the  work  that  came  under  consideration,  but  the 
merit  of  the  cause.  This  at  once  destroyed  almost  en 
tirely  the  value  of  any  criticism  which  the  story  re 
ceived. 

A  little  while  before  "  The  Bravo  "  appeared,  Cooper 
was  unwillingly  led  to  take  part  in  a  controversy  which, 
according  to  his  own  view,  was  the  remote  cause  of  the 
hostility  he  afterwards  encountered  in  his  own  land. 
It  was  at  the  time  that  the  movement  began  on  the  part 
of  Louis  Philippe  to  separate  himself  from  the  liberals, 
of  whom  Lafayette  was  the  chief  representative.  A  dis 
cussion  had  arisen,  in  the  French  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
on  the  desirability  of  a  reduction  in  the  expenses  of  gov 
ernment.  It  gave  rise  to  a  controversy  which  extended 
much  beyond  the  body  in  which  it  originated.  Lafay 
ette  had  advocated  greater  economy.  In  the  course  of 
the  debate  mentioned,  he  had  referred  to  the  United 
States  as  being  a  country  which  was  cheaply  governed, 
and  at  the  same  time  well  governed.  The  periodical 
press  at  once  took  up  the  question.  M.  Saulnier,  one 
of  the  editors  of  the  "  Kevue  Britannique,"  came  out 
with  an  article,  the  direct  object  of  which  was  to  prove 
that  a  government  of  three  powers,  such  as  was  the  lim 
ited  monarchy  recently  established,  was  not  so  expensive 


112  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

as  that  of  a  republic.  In  particular,  he  claimed  that  the 
tax  levied  per  head  on  the  citizens  of  France  was  less 
than  that  similarly  levied  on  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States.  This  was  a  direct  attack  upon  Lafayette,  who 
had  for  forty  years  been  maintaining  that  the  govern 
ment  of  this  country  was  the  cheapest  known.  The  at- 
.tention  of  Cooper  was  called  to  this  article,  and  lie  was 
asked  to  reply.  He  declined.  A  little  later  it  was 
made  clear  to  him  that  the  object  with  which  it  was 
written  was  to  injure  Lafayette.  The  matter  then  as 
sumed  another  aspect.  To  that  statesman  Cooper  was 
bound  by  ties  of  intimate  personal  friendship  and  by 
a  common  love  of  this  country.  At  a  public  dinner, 
which  had  been  given  to  Lafayette  on  the  8th  of  De 
cember,  1830,  by  the  Americans  in  Paris,  Cooper  had 
presided,  and  in  a  speech  of  marked  fervor  and  ability, 
he  had  dwelt  upon  the  debt  due  from  the  United  States 
to  the  gallant  Frenchman,  who  had  ventured  fortune 
and  life  to  aid  a  nation  struggling  against  great  odds  to 
be  free.  It  was  not  in  his  nature  to  have  his  deeds 
give  the  lie  to  his  words.  The  fact  above  mentioned 
at  once  overcame  his  reluctance  to  engage  in  the  con 
troversy.  Accordingly  in  December,  1831,  appeared  a 
"Letter  to  General  Lafayette,"  preceded  by  a  letter 
from  Lafayette  to  himself,  dated  the  22d  of  November. 
This  was  a  pamphlet  of  fifty  pages,  in  which  he  went 
into  the  subject  of  the  cost  of  the  United  States  govern 
ment.  It  produced  an  immediate  reply  from  M.  Saul- 
nier,  who  went  over  the  ground  again,  and  with  a  fine 
air  of  candor  affected  to  revise  his  previous  statements. 
As  a  result  he  made  the  cost  of  the  American  govern 
ment  a  little  larger  than  he  had  done  before.  To  this 
Cooper  replied  in  a  series  of  letters  published  in  the 


DEFENSE  OF  AMERICA.  113 

"  National."  The  controversy  would  have  ended 
sooner  than  it  did,  had  it  not  been  for  the  appearance  of 
a  fresh  actor  on  the  scene.  This  was  a  certain  Mr. 
Leavitt  Harris.  He  nominally  belonged  to  New  Jer 
sey,  but  a  large  share  of  his  life  had  been  spent  in  Rus 
sia,  and  his  political  notions  had  apparently  become 
acclimated  to  that  region.  He  wrote  an  article  on  the 
subject  in  the  shape  of  a  letter  to  M.  Francois  Delas- 
sert,  the  vice-president  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies.  In 
it  he  took  ground  opposite  to  that  taken  by  Cooper,  con 
troverted  his  facts,  and  denied  his  inferences.  So  great 
weight  was  attached  to  it  by  the  French  government 
party  that  it  was  published  as  a  supplementary  number 
of  the  "  Revue  Britannique."  Mr.  Harris  had  once 
been  left  as  charge  d'  affaires  at  St.  Petersburg  during 
the  absence  of  John  Adams  at  the  peace  negotiations 
at  Ghent.  His  letter  was  accordingly  dwelt  upon  as 
the  production  of  an  American  who  had  been  intrusted 
by  his  government  with  high  diplomatic  position.  "We 
who  know  out  of  what  stuff  our  foreign  agents  are 
sometimes  made,  would  not  be  likely  to  attach  much 
weight  to  the  mere  fact.  But  to  a  foreign  nation  the 
opinion  of  an  official  seemed  naturally  more  trustworthy 
than  that  of  a  private  citizen. 

To  the  letter  of  Mr.  Harris,  Cooper  replied  on  the  3d 
of  May,  1832.  This  closed  the  discussion,  at  least  so 
far  as  he  was  concerned.1  But  the  controversy  was  fol 
lowed  by  circumstances  of  a  mortifying  character.  Af 
ter  the  return  to  America  of  the  United  States  minister5 

1  I  express  no  opinion  on  the  merits  of  this  controversy,  for  I  have 
seen  very  plight  summaries  only  of  the  articles  that  appeared  in  the 
Revue  Britannique.  But  it  is  proper  to  say  that  it  was  the  opinion  of 
the  French  liberals,  that  Cooper  utterly  demolished  his  antagonists  in 
the  controversy. 


114  JAMES  FEXIMORE  COOPER. 

William  C.  Rives,  Mr.  Harris  was  nominated  by  the 
President,  and  confirmed  by  the  Senate  early  in  March, 
1833,  as  charge  d'affaires  ;  and  this  office  he  held  until 
the  arrival  of  Edward  Livingston,  who  was  appointed 
minister  on  the  3d  of  May  of  the  same  year.  Previously 
to  this  discreditable  act,  the  Department  of  State  had 
committed  one  of  imbecility.  It  had  issued  a  circular  to 
the  different  local  authorities  of  the  Union  with  avowed 
reference  to  the  finance  controversy.  Its  purport  was  a 
request  for  them  to  furnish  information  in  regard  to  the 
amount  of  public  expenditures  over  which  they  had  con 
trol.  Against  this  course  Cooper  protested  at  once  in 
a  long  and  vigorous  letter  to  the  American  people,  writ 
ten  on  the  10th  of  December,  1832,  from  Vevay,  Switz 
erland,  and  first  printed  in  the  Philadelphia  "  National 
Gazette."  He  took  the  ground  that  in  such  a  discus 
sion  local  burdens  ought  not  to  be  included.  It  was,  in 
fact,  by  confusing  various  kinds  of  taxation,  and  taxa 
tion  for  various  objects,  that  the  French  government 
party  had  been  able  to  make  any  showing  for  their  own 
side.  The  letter  was  widely  circulated,  and  seems  to 
have  served  its  purpose  in  suppressing  the  information 
that  had  been  asked. 

Unfortunately  it  was  not  the  administration  alone 
that  displayed  a  lack  of  proper  sentiment  in  this  contro 
versy.  It  is  far  from  being  a  creditable  thing  in  the 
history  of  the  country  that  Cooper  was  subjected  to  con 
stant  attack,  and  even  abuse,  in  the  American  newspa 
pers,  for  his  conduct  in  this  finance  discussion.  He 
had  been  particularly  careful  to  confine  his  remarks  to 
the  cost  of  government  in  the  United  States.  He  had 
not  touched  at  all  upon  the  cost  of  government  in 
France.  Yet  he  was  charged  with  having  overstepped 


DEFENSE  OF  AMERICA.  115 

the  reserve  imposed  upon  foreigners,  and  of  having  at 
tacked  the  administration  of  a  friendly  country.  The 
accusation  was  constantly  made  against  him  that  he 
went  about  "flouting  his  Americanism  throughout  Eu 
rope,"  and  in  this  particular  case  that  he  had  overrated 
the  importance  of  the  controversy,  and  also  the  impor 
tance  of  the  part  he  had  taken  in  it.  He  had,  in  fact, 
aroused  the  hostility  of  that  section  of  Americans,  insig 
nificant  in  number  and  ability,  but  sometimes  having 
social  position,  who  prefer  the  conveniences  of  despot 
ism  to  the  inconveniences  of  liberty.  To  such  men 
Cooper's  intense  nationality  was  a  standing  reproach. 
His  reputation,  moreover,  made  their  own  littleness  es 
pecially  conspicuous.  Depreciation  of  him,  and  of  his 
rank  as  a  man  of  letters,  was  a  necessity  of  their  case. 
As  they  did  not  express  openly  their  real  feelings,  they 
carried  on  at  advantage  a  war  against  a  man  who  never 
had  the  prudence  to  hide  what  he  thought.  Yet  among 
the  better  class  of  Americans  abroad,  Cooper's  attach 
ment  to  his  native  land  received  the  recognition  it  mer 
ited.  "  Cooper's  new  book,  '  The  Bravo,' "  wrote  Ho 
ratio  Greenough,  from  Paris,  to  Rembrandt  Peale,  in 
November,  1831,  "  is  taking  wonderfully  here.  If  you 
could  transfuse  a  little  of  that  man's  love  of  country  and 
national  pride  into  the  leading  members  of  our  high 
society,  I  think  it  would  leaven  them  all." 

But  the  attacks  in  the  American  newspapers  made  a 
painful  impression  upon  a  mind  that  was  morbidly  sensi 
tive  to  criticism  even  from  the  most  insignificant  of  men. 
For  an  act  of  generous  patriotism  for  which  he  deserved 
the  thanks  of  all  his  countrymen  he  had  received  vilifica 
tion  from  many  of  them.  These  things  embittered  him. 
They  made  him  distrustful  of  the  spirit  that  prevailed 


116  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

in  his  own  land.  He  began  to  fancy  that  the  country 
had  gone  back  instead  of  forward  in  national  feeling 
during  the  years  of  his  absence.  He  had  determined 
to  return,  because  he  was  unwilling  to  have  his  children 
brought  up  on  foreign  soil  and  under  foreign  influences. 
But  for  himself  he  resolved  to  abandon  literature.  As 
soon  as  he  had  finished  the  manuscript  he  had  in  hand, 
he  would  give  up  all  further  thought  of  writing.  "  The 
quill  and  I  are  divorced,"  he  wrote  to  Greenough  in 
June,  1833,  "and  you  cannot  conceive  the  degree  of 
freedom,  I  could  almost  say  of  happiness,  I  feel  at  hav 
ing  got  my  neck  out  of  the  halter."  Longings  for  his 
old  sea-life  often  came  over  him.  "  You  must  not  be 
surprised,"  he  wrote,  half-jestingly,  to  the  same  friend, 
"  if  you  hear  of  my  sailing  a  sloop  between  Cape  Cod 
and  New  York."  But  he  had  no  definite  plans  marked 
out.  The  only  thing  about  which  his  mind  was  made 
up  was  not  to  write  any  more. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

1833-1838. 

ON  the  fifth  of  November,  1833,  Cooper  landed  at 
jw  York.  For  a  few  winters  that  followed  he  made 
that  city  his  place  of  residence.  The  summers  he  spent 
in  Cooperstown.  To  this  village  he  paid  a  visit  in  June, 
1834,  after  having  been  away  from  it  entirely  for  about 
sixteen  years.  The  recollections  of  his  early  life  had 
always  endeared  it  to  his  memory,  and  in  it  he  now 
determined  to  take  up  his  permanent  abode.  Accord 
ingly  he  acquired  possession  of  his  father's  old  place, 
which  for  a  long  period  had  remained  unoccupied. 
The  house  had  received  from  the  inhabitants  the  name 
of  Templeton  Hall,  with  a  direct  reference  to  "  The 
Pioneers."  Everything  about  it  was  rapidly  hastening 
to  ruin.  Cooper  at  once  began  repairs  upon  it,  and  after 
these  had  been  fully  completed  he  made  it  his  only 
residence.  It  was  in  this  little  village,  upon  the  shore 
of  the  lake  which  his  pen  has  made  famous,  that  he 
spent  the  remainder  of  his  life.  There  he  wrote  nearly 
all  the  works  which  he  produced  after  his  return  to 
his  native  land.  Its  seclusion  and  quiet  gave  him  am 
ple  opportunities  for  undisturbed  literary  exertion ;  the 
beauty  of  the  surroundings  ministered  constantly  to  his 
passion  for  scenery ;  and  of  the  world  outside  he  saw 
sufficient  to  satisfy  his  wishes  in  the  frequejit  journeys 
which  business  compelled  him  to  make  to  the  great 
cities. 


118  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

Yet,  though  his  latter  days  were  spent  in  the  country, 
the  life  he  led  henceforward  deserves  anything  but  the 
name  of  a  pastoral.  With  the  return  from  Europe  be 
gins  the  epic  period  of  Cooper's  career.  The  next  ten 
years,  in  particular,  were  years  of  battle  and  storm. 
He  had  been  criticised  harshly  and  unjustly ;  he  came 
back  prepared  and  disposed  to  criticise.'  His  feelings 
found  expression  at  once.  The  America  to  which  he 
had  returned  seemed  to  him  much  worse  than  that  from 
which  he  had  gone.  In  his  opinion  nearly  everything 
had  deteriorated.  Manners,  morals,  the  whole  spirit 
of  the  nation,  struck  him  as  being  on  a  lower  level. 
Yet  the  change  was  not  really  in  the  people ;  it  was  in » 
himself.  The  country  had  been  moving  on  in  the  Tine 
of  its  natural  bustling  development ;  he,  on  the  con 
trary,  had  been  going  back  in  sentiment.  In  one  par 
ticular  there  was  a  certain  justification  for  the  dislike 
expressed  by  him  for  the  novel  things  he  saw.  The 
business  of  the  entire  land  was  in  a  feverish  condition. 
The  Erie  Canal,  completed  the  year  before  his  de 
parture  for  Europe,  had  opened  an  unbroken  water 
way  from  the  Atlantic  sea-board  to  the  farthest  shores 
of  the  great  lakes.  To  this  stimulus  to  population  and 
trade  was  added  the  expected  stimulus  of  the  railroad 
system,  then  in  its  infancy.  Both  together  were  dis 
closing,  though  more  to  the  imagination  than  to  the 
eye,  the  wealth  that  lay  hid  in  the  unsettled  regions  of 
the  West.  They  were  active  agents,  therefore,  in 
creating  one  of  those  periods  of  speculative  prosperity 
which  are  sure  to  recur  when  any  new  and  unforeseen 
avenue  to  sudden  fortune  is  laid  open.  The  immense 
field  for  endeavor  revealed  by  the  prospective  establish 
ment  of  flourishing  communities  reacted  unfavorably 


RETURN  FROM  EUROPE.  119 

upon  the  intellectual  movement  which  had  begun  in  a 
feeble  way  to  show  itself  twenty  years  before.  The 
attraction  of  mighty  enterprises  which  held  out  to  the 
hope  promises  of  the  highest  temporal  triumphs,  was  a 
competition  that  mere  literary  and  scholastic  pursuits, 
with  their  doubtful  success  and  precarious  rewards, 
could  not  well  maintain.  The  country  certainly  went 
back  for  a  time  in  higher  things  in  consequence  of  that 
rapid  material  progress  which  drew  to  its  further  devel 
opment  the  youthful  energy  and  ability  of  the  entire 
land.  To  make  money  and  to  make  it  rapidly  seemed 
to  be  the  one  object  of  life. 

Such  a  fever  of  speculative  prosperity  wholly  absorb 
ing  the  thoughts  and  activities  of  men  in  the  acquisition 
of  wealth,  would  have  been  viewed  by  Cooper  at  any 
time  with  indifference,  even  if  it  did  not  inspire  disgust. 
But  a  greater  change  than  he  knew  had  come  over  him. 
It  is  clear  that  he  had  now  grown  largely  out  of  sympa 
thy  with  the  energy  and  enterprise  which  were  doing  so 
much  to  build  up  the  prosperity  and  power  of  his  coun 
try.  His  nature  had  come  into  a  profound  sympathy 
with  the  quiet,  the  culture,  and  the  polish  of  the  lands 
he  had  left  behind.  His  spirit  could  no  longer  be  in 
cited  by  the  romance  that  lay  hid  in  the  fiery  energies 
of  trade.  In  the  tumultuousness  of  the  life  about  him, 
he  could  see  little  but  a  restless  and  vulgar  exertion  for 
the  creation  of  wealth.  The  perpetual  bustle  and 
change  were  not  to  his  taste.  He  spoke  of  it  after 
wards,  in  one  of  his  works,  with  a  certain  grim  humor 
peculiarly  his  own.  America  he  said,  was  a  country 
for  alibis.  The  whole  nation  was  in  motion ;  and  every 
body  was  everywhere,  and  nobody  was  anywhere. 

Feelings  of  this  kind  had  begun  to  come  over  him 


120  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

long  before  his  return  from  abroad.  He  had  been  af 
fected  by  his  surroundings  to  an  extent  of  which  he  was 
only  vaguely  conscious.  While  in  Europe  he  admitted 
that  he  found  growing  in  his  nature  a  strong  distaste  for 
the  common  appliances  of  common  life.  He  had  not 
been  long  in  Florence  before  these  sentiments  found  ut 
terance.  "  I  begin  to  feel,"  he  wrote,  "  I  could  be  well 
content  to  vegetate  here  for  one  half  of  my  life,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  remainder."  He  drew  sharp  distinctions 
between  commercial  towns  and  capitals.  Even  in  Italy, 
Leghorn  with  its  growing  trade,  its  bales  of  merchan 
dise,  its  atmosphere  filled  with  the  breath  of  the  salt  sea 
mixed  with  the  smell  of  pitch  and  tar,  seemed  mean  arid 
vulgar  after  the  refinement  and  world-old  beauty  of 
Florence.  He  acknowledged  that  the  languor  and  re 
pose  of  towns  which  glory  simply  in  their  collections 
and  recollections,  were  far  more  suited  to  his  feelings 
than  the  activity  and  tumult  of  towns  whose  glory  lies 
in  their  commercial  enterprises.  This  preference  is  not 
uncommon  among  cultivated  men.  But  it  is  too  much  to 
ask  of  a  nation  that  it  shall  exist  for  the  sake  of  grati 
fying  the  aesthetic  emotions  of  travelers.  The  process 
of  achieving  greatness  can  never  be  so  agreeable  to  the 
looker-on  as  the  sight  of  greatness  achieved;  but  it  is 
unhappily  often  the  case  that  many  things,  which  the 
visitor  regards  as  a  charm,  the  native  feels  to  be  a  re 
proach. 

Besides  the  change  of  view  in  himself,  there  were 
some  actual  changes  in  the  country  that  were  not  tem 
porary  in  their  nature.  The  constitution  of  society  had 
altered  at  home  during  his  residence  abroad,  or  was  rap 
idly  altering.  The  influence  of  the  old  colonial  aristoc 
racy  was  fast  dying  out.  New  men  were  pushing  to  the 


RETURN  FROM  EUROPE.  121 

wall  the  descendants  of  the  families  that  had  flourished 
before  the  Revolution,  and  had  sought  after  it  to  keep 
up  distinctions  and  exclusiveness  which  the  very  suc 
cess  of  the  struggle  in  which  they  had  been  concerned 
doomed  to  an  early  decay.  This  was  especially  notice 
able  in  New  York.  In  such  a  city  social  rank  must 
tend,  in  the  long  run,  to  wait  upon  wealth.  The  result 
may  be  delayed,  it  cannot  be  averted.  Wealth,  too,  in 
most  cases,  will  find  its  way  to  the  hands  of  those  carry 
ing  on  great  commercial  undertakings.  That  this  class 
would  eventually  become  a  controlling  one  in  society,  if 
not  the  controlling  one,  was  inevitable.  It  was  not 
likely  that  men,  who  were  bent  on  the  conquest  of  the 
continent,  who  revolved  even  in  their  dreams  all  forms 
of  the  adventurous  and  the  perilous,  whose  enterprise 
stopped  short  only  with  the  impossible,  would  be  con 
tent  long  to  submit  to  a  fictitious  superiority  on  the  part 
of  those  whose  thoughts  were  so  taken  up  with  the  consid 
eration  of  what  their  fathers  had  been  or  had  done  that 
they  forgot  to  be  or  to  do  anything  themselves.  Yet  the 
latter  composed  no  small  share  of  the  class  with  which 
Cooper's  early  associations  had  lain.  He  naturally 
sympathized  with  them  rather  than  with  those  who 
were  displacing  them.  Trade  began  to  seem  to  him  vul 
gar,  and  it  was  doubtless  true  that  many  engaged  in  it, 
who  had  become  rapidly  rich,  were  vulgar  enough.  But 
he  made  no  distinction.  He  longed  for  the  restoration 
of  a  state  of  things  that  had  gone  forever  by.  He  was 
disposed  to  feel  dissatisfaction  with  much  that  was  tak 
ing  place,  not  because  it  came  into  conflict  with  his 
judgment,  but  because  it  jarred  upon  his  tastes  and  prej 
udices. 

A  residence  in  Europe  for  a  few  years  had,  indeed, 


122  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

done  for  him  what  the  coming-on  of  old  age  does  for 
most.  He  had  become  the  eulogist  of  times  past.  The 
views  which  he  expressed  in  private  and  in  public,  dur 
ing  the  decade  that  followed  his  return  to  America, 
were  not  of  the  kind  to  make  him  popular  with  his 
countrymen.  The  manners  of  the  people  were,  accord 
ing  to  him,  decidedly  worse  than  they  were  twenty  or 
thirty  years  before.  The  elegant  deportment  of  women 
had  been  largely  supplanted  by  the  rattle  of  hoydens 
and  the  giggling  of  the  nursery.  The  class  of  superior 
men  of  the  quiet  old  school  were  fast  disappearing  be 
fore  the  "  wine-discussing,  trade-talking,  dollar-dollar 
set"  of  the  day.  Under  the  blight  of  this  bustling, 
fussy,  money-getting  race  of  social  Vandals,  simplicity 
of  manners  had  died  out,  or  was  dying  out.  The  archi 
tecture  of  the  houses,  like  the  character  of  the  society, 
was  more  ambitious  than  of  old,  but  in  far  worse  taste  ; 
in  a  taste,  in  fact,  which  had  been  corrupted  by  unin- 
structed  pretension.  The  towns  were  larger,  but  they 
were  tawdrier  than  ever.  The  spirit  of  traffic  was  grad 
ually  enveloping  everything  in  its  sordid  grasp.  There 
had  taken  placet  a  vast  expansion  of  mediocrity,  well 
enough  in  itself,  but  so  overwhelming  as  nearly  to  over 
shadow  everything  that  once  stood  out  as  excellent. 

In  most  of  these  remarks  I  am  giving  Cooper's  senti 
ments,  as  far  as  possible,  in  his  own  words.  They  stung 
the  national  vanity  to  the  quick.  The  bitter  resentment 
they  evoked  at  the  time  could  hardly  be  understood 
now ;  and  a  great  deal  of  wrath  was  then  kindled  at  what 
would  meet  with  assent,  at  the  present  day,  on  account  of 
its  justice,  or  excite  amusement  on  account  of  its  exag 
geration.  Thurlow  Weed,  in  1841,  expressed  a  general 
sentiment  about  Cooper,  with  much  affluence  of  capital 


DISSATISFACTION   WITH  HIS  COUNTRYMEN.    123 

letter  and  solemnity  of  exclamatory  punctuation.  "  He 
has  disparaged,  American  Lakes,"  wrote  that  editor, 
"  ridiculed  American  Scenery,  burlesqued  American 
Coin,  and  even  satirized  the  American  Flag  ! "  Cooper 
could  hardly  have  expected  his  strictures  to  be  received 
with  applause,  but  he  was  clearly  surprised  at  the  outcry 
they  awoke.  Yet  he  had  had  plenty  of  opportunities  to 
learn  that  other  countries  were  as  sensitive  to  criticism 
as  his  own.  One  singular  illustration  of  this  feeling 
had  been  exhibited  at  Eome.  He  had  completed  his 
novel  of  "  The  Water  Witch  "  and  wished  to  print  and 
publish  it  in  that  city.  The  manuscript  was  accordingly 
sent  to  the  censor.  It  was  kept  for  days,  which  grew 
to  weeks.  It  was  at  last  returned  with  refusal,  unless 
it  were  subjected  to  thorough  revision.  Almost  on  the 
opening  page  occurred  a  highly  objectionable  para 
graph.  "  It  would  seem,"  Cooper  had  written,  "  that  as 
nature  has  given  its  periods  to  the  stages  of  animal  life, 
it  has  also  set  limits  to  all  moral  and  political  ascen 
dency.  While  the  city  of  the  Medici  is  receding  from 
its  crumbling  walls,  like  the  human  form  shrinking  into 
*  the  lean  and  slippered  pantaloon,'  the  Queen  of  the 
Adriatic  sleeping  on  her  muddy  isles,  and  Rome  itself  is 
only  to  be  traced  by  fallen  temples  and  buried  columns, 
the  youthful  vigor  of  America  is  fast  covering  the  wilds 
of  the  West  with  the  happiest  fruits  of  human  industry." 
This  passage,  the  censor  quietly  but  severely  pointed  out, 
laid  down  a  principle  that  was  unsound,  and  supported 
it  by  facts  that  were  false.  A  rigid  pruning  could  alone 
make  the  work  worthy  of  a  license.  The  consequence 
was  that  Cooper  carried  the  manuscript  with  him  to 
Germany,  and  it  was  first  published  in  Dresden,  in  a 
land  where  men  were  not  sensitive  to  anything  that 
might  be  said,  at  any  rate  about  Italy. 


124  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

But  the  personal  unpopularity  he  brought  upon  him 
self  by  his  censorious  remarks  will  not  wholly  account 
for  the  unpopularity  as  a  writer,  which  it  was  his  fort 
une,  in  no  short  time,  to  acquire.  There  were  other 
agencies  at  work  besides  those  which  affected  the  feel 
ing  towards  him  as  a  man.  Throughout  the  English- 
speaking  world  there  had  been  a  literary  reaction.  Men 
had  begun  to  tire  of  the  novel  of  adventure.  It  was 
not  that  it  had  lost  its  hold  upon  the  public;  it  had  lost 
the  supreme  hold  which  for  twenty  years  it  had  main 
tained.  The  mighty  master  was  dead ;  to  some  extent 
his  influence  had  died  before  him.  The  later  work  he 
did,  had  in  several  instances  detracted  from,  rather  than 
added  to  the  fame  he  had  won  by  the  earlier.  Cooper's 
own  ventures  in  the  field  of  foreign  fiction,  whatever 
their  absolute  merit,  could  not  be  compared  with  those 
in  which  he  had  drawn  the  life  of  the  ocean,  or  the 
streams  and  forests  of  his  native  land.  But  outside  of 
any  effect  produced  by  poorer  production,  there  could  be 
no  doubt  of  the  fact  of  a  change  in  the  public  taste.  The 
hero  of  action  had  gone  by.  In  his  place  had  come  the 
hero  of  observation  and  reflection,  who  did  not  do  great 
things,  but  who  said  good  things.  The  exquisite  and 
the  sentimentalist  were  the  fashion,  to  be  speedily  fol 
lowed,  according  to  the  law  of  reaction,  by  the  boor  and 
the  satirist.  At  the  time  when  Cooper  returned  from 
Europe,  Bulwer  was  the  popular  favorite.  Both  in 
England  and  America  he  was  styled  the  prince  of  liv 
ing  novelists ;  and  nowhere  was  enthusiasm,  in  his  be 
half,  crazier  than  in  this  country.  The  revolution  in 
taste,  moreover,  worked  directly  in  his  favor  in  more 
ways  than  one.  Scott  and  Cooper's  heroes,  whether  in 
telligent  or  not,  were  invariably  moral.  But  of  this 


DISSATISFACTION  WITH  HIS  COUNTRTJIEX.    125 

sort  of  men  readers  were  tired.  No  character  could 
please  highly  the  popular  palate  in  which  there  was  not 
a  distinct  flavor  of  iniquity.  More  ability  and  less  mo 
rality  was  the  opinion  generally  entertained,  though 
probably  not  often  expressed.  Hence  it  was  not  unnat 
ural  that  the  sentimental  dandies  and  high-toned  vil 
lains  of  Bulwer's  earlier  novels  should  have  been  the 
heroes  to  captivate  all  hearts. 

The  comparatively  low  estimate  into  which  the  novel 
of  adventure  had  sunk,  undoubtedly  had  a  marked  effect 
upon  Cooper's  reputation.  Some  of  his  later  work  is 
superior  to  his  earlier  from  the  artistic  point  of  view. 
Yet  it  was  never  received  with  the  same  praise,  at  least 
in  English-speaking  countries.  More  than  that,  the 
criticism  it  received  was  often  excessively  depreciatory ; 
nor  was  this  all  due  to  personal  unpopularity,  though  a 
good  deal  of  it  certainly  was.  He  simply  wrote  in  a 
style  which  the  age  had  temporarily  left  behind,  and 
fancied  it  had  outgrown.  All  that  Cooper  had  to  do,  all 
that  under  any  circumstances  he  could  do,  was  to  keep 
on  producing  the  best  that  lay  in  his  power  ;  sure  to  find 
a  certain  body  of  readers  in  sympathy  with  him ;  sure 
also  that  some  time  in  the  future  the  revolution  of  taste 
would  bring  him  into  fashion  if  he  had  written  anything 
that  really  deserved  to  live. 

These  facts  and  considerations  must,  however,  be 
borne  in  mind  in  order  to  understand  the  gradual 
growth  of  the  ill-feeling  that  sprang  up  between  Cooper 
and  his  countrymen.  To  the  change  of  view  in  himself 
and  to  the  change  of  taste  in  the  public,  were  soon 
added  special  circumstances  that  tended  to  bring  about 
or  increase  alienation.  But  there  did  not  exist  toward 
him,  when  he  came  back  from  Europe,  any  hostility  on 


126  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE  COOPER. 

the  part  of  his  countrymen.  Circumstances  had  led  him 
to  suspect  such  a  feeling ;  but  it  was  mainly  the  creation 
of  a  nature  that  was  morbidly  sensitive  to  criticism.  He 
was  not,  to  be  sure,  the  popular  idol  at  his  return  that 
he  had  been  at  his  departure.  But  this  decline,  outside 
of  the  causes  already  mentioned,  was  due  to  ignorance 
rather  than  dislike.  A  new  generation  had,  during  his 
absence,  come  on  the  scene  of  active  life.  To  it  the  in 
fluence  of  his  personal  presence  was  unknown.  He  had 
been  away  so  long  that  many  looked  upon  him  with  the 
indifference  with  which  foreigners  are  regarded  by  the 
majority ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  fact  of  his  being  a 
native  prevented  others  from  feeling  that  interest  in 
him  which  a  foreigner  has  to  some.  "Whatever  hostil 
ity  actually  existed  sprang  mainly  from  causes  credita 
ble  to  himself.  If  Cooper  disliked  England  for  its  de 
preciation  of  America,  he  hated  with  a  hatred  akin  to 
loathing,  the  recreant  Americans  who  mistook  the  rela 
tion  they  bore  to  their  native  land,  and  apologized  for 
its  character  and  existence,  instead  of  apologizing  for 
their  own.  For  these  men  he  made  no  effort  to  hide  the 
contempt  he  felt.  This  class,  far  larger  then  in  numbers 
than  now,  came  mainly  from  the  great  cities.  Many  of 
them  had  wealth  and  social  position  to  make  up  for  their 
lack  of  ability ;  some  of  them  were  attached  to  the  le 
gations.  They  naturally  resented  the  low  opinion  en 
tertained  and  expressed  of  them  by  their  countryman, 
and  had  doubtless  done  him  some  harm,  though  far  less 
than  he  supposed.  Besides  these,  however,  there  were 
certainly  a  pretty  large  number  by  whom  his  aggressive 
patriotism  was  felt  to  be  a  positive  bore.  To  this  feel 
ing  there  had  been  a  good  deal  of  expression  given  in 
the  newspaper  press.  Cooper,  who  never  could  learn 


DISSATISFACTION   WITH  HIS  COUNTRYMEN.    127 

how  little  effect  of  itself  hostile  criticism  has  upon  the 
reputation  of  a  popular  writer,  gave  to  these  attacks  far 
more  weight  than  they  deserved. 

It  was,  therefore,  with  exaggerated  and  unnecessary 
feelings  of  distrust  that  he  had  returned  to  his  native 
land.  He  looked  for  indifference  and  aversion.  Men 
seldom-  fail  to  find  in  such  cases  what  they  expect.  He 
was  present  at  a  reception  given,  a  few  days  after  his  re 
turn,  to  Commodore  Chauucey.  Men  whom  he  knew, 
but  had  not  seen  for  years,  did  not  come  up  to  speak 
with  him  ;  those  who  did,  addressed  him  as  if  he  had 
been  gone  from  the  city  a  few  weeks.  So  much  was  he 
chilled  by  this  apparent  coldness  that  he  left  the  room 
before  the  dinner  was  half  over.  He  did  not  appreciate 
his  own  reserve  of  manner.  The  indifference  which  he 
found  was,  in  many  cases,  due  not  to  any  lack  of  cor 
diality  in  others,  but  to  hesitation  at  the  way  in  which 
advances  would  be  received  by  himself.  There  was  a 
brusqueness  in  his  address,  an  apparent  assumption  in 
his  manner,  which  had  nothing  consonant  to  them  in  his 
feelings.  But^it  was  only  those  who  knew  him  inti 
mately  that  could  venture,  after  long  separation,  to 
break  in  upon  this  seeming  unsociableness  and  hauteur. 

On  Monday,  May  29  1826,  just  before  his  departure 
for  Europe,  a  dinner  had  been  given  to  Cooper  at  the 
City  Hotel  by  the  club  which  he  had  founded.  It  par 
took  almost  of  the  nature  of  an  ovation.  Chancellor 
Kent  had  presided.  De  Witt  Clinton,  the  governor  of 
the  state,  General  Scott,  and  many  others  conspicuous  in 
public  life, had  honored  it  with  their  presence.  Charles 
King,  the  editor  of  the  "  New  York  American,"  and  sub 
sequently  president  of  Columbia  College,  had  addressed 
him  in  a  speech  full  of  the  heartiest  interest  in  his  fut- 


128  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER 

ure  and  of  pride  in  his  past.  The  Chancellor  had  voiced 
the  general  feeling  by  toasting  him  as  the  "  genius 
which  has  rendered  our  native  soil  classic  ground,  and 
given  to  our  early  history  the  enchantment  of  fiction." 
No  one,  in  fact,  had  ever  left  the  country  with  warmer 
wishes  or  more  enthusiastic  expressions  of  admiration 
and  regard.  It  was  but  little  more  than  a  week  after 
his  return  when  another  invitation  to  a  public  dinner 
was  offered  him  by  some  of  the  most  prominent  citizens 
of  New  York.  In  this  they  expressly  asserted  that  he 
had  won  their  esteem  and  affection,  not  merely  by  his 
talents,  but  by  his  manly  defense,  while  abroad,  of  the 
institutions  of  his  country.  The  invitation  seemed  to 
surprise  Cooper  as  well  as  the  language  in  which  it  was 
couched.  He  thanked  the  proposers  warmly,  but  he  de 
clined  it.  The  refusal  was  perhaps  unavoidable.  If  so, 
it  was  unfortunate  ;  if  not,  it  was  a  mistake.  Had  the 
dinner  taken  place,  it  would  hav.e  shown*him  the  estima 
tion  in  which  he  was  really  held,  and  would  have  mod 
ified  or  destroyed  any  prejudices  entertained  towards 
him  by  others,  if  any  such  existed. 

Up  to  this  period  in  his  public  career,  Cooper  had  cer 
tainly  not  done  anything  to  undermine  his  popularity. 
He  now  entered  upon  a  line  of  conduct  which  it  is  char 
ity  to  call  blundering.  He  began,  or  at  any  rate  pur 
sued,  a  controversy,  in  which  nothing  was  to  be  gained 
and  everything  to  be  risked,  if  not  actually  lost.  He 
not  only  set  himself  to  defend  a  course  that  needed  no 
defense,  he  replied  to  attacks,  real  or  imaginary,  which 
could  only  be  raised  into  importance  by  receiving  from 
him  noticeo  These  attacks  were  a  criticism  on  "  The 
Bravo  "  which  had  appeared  in  the  "  New  York  Amer 
ican  ;  "  a  criticism  on  his  later  writings  which  was  found 


DISSATISFACTION   WITH  HIS   COUNTRYMEN.    129 

in  the  columns  of  the  "  New  York  Commercial  Adver 
tiser  ;  "  and  an  editorial  article  in  the  "  New  York  Cou 
rier  and  Enquirer."  He  could  not  have  done  a  more 
foolish  thing.  He  knew  perfectly  well  that  no  writer 
could  be  written  down  save  by  himself.  He  has  quoted 
the  very  remark.  But  a  hundred  similar  sayings,  con 
densing  in  a  line  the  wisdom  of  ages,  could  never  have 
kept  him  quiet  when  an  attack  was  made  upon  himself. 
A  popular  writer  has  always  immense  odds  in  his  favor 
in  any  controversy  he  may  have  with  inferior  men.  He 
is  ordinarily  sure  of  the  verdict  of  posterity,  for  his  is 
likely  to  be  the  only  side  that  will  reach  its  ears.  Even 
during  his  own  time  there  will  always  be  a  large  body 
of  admirers  who  will  defend  him  with  more  fervor,  and 
advocate  his  cause  with  more  effect  than  he  has  it  in  his 
own  power  to  do.  But  it  can  and  will  be  done  only  in 
the  case  that  he  does  little  or  nothing  himself.  If 
Cooper  had  lost  any  ground  in  the  estimation  of  the 
public,  all  he  had  to  do,  in  order  to  regain  it,  was  to  re 
main  quiet.  The  one  thing  that  Cooper  could  not  do  was 
to  remain  quiet.  He  determined  to  set  himself  right  be 
fore  his  countrymen.  He  speedily  had  full  opportunity 
to  ascertain  the  results  that  are  pretty  sure  to  follow  ex 
periments  of  this  kind. 

In  June,  1834,  appeared  Cooper's  "  Letter  to  His 
Countrymen."  Its  publication  was  no  sudden  freak,  for 
the  year  before  he  had  announced  the  preparation  of  it. 
The  work  is  a  thin  octavo  of  a  little  more  than  one  hun 
dred  pages  ;  but  the  damage  it  wrought  him  was  out  of 
all  proportion  to  its  size.  The  first  half  of  it  was  taken 
up  with  a  reply  to  the  comments  and  criticisms  made  in 
the  New  York  journals  already  mentioned.  This  was  of 
itself  sufficiently  absurd,  for  it  revived  what  had  already 


130  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

been  forgotten,  and  gave  importance  to  some  things  that 
had  not  been  worth  reading,  let  alone  remembering.  But 
to  this  blundering  was  added  a  wrongheadedness,  of  which 
Cooper's  later  life  was  to  afford  numerous  illustrations. 
The  article  from  the  "  Courier  and  Enquirer  "  is  quoted 
in  full  in  the  book.  Some  of  its  statements  are  inac 
curate  ;  but  no  one  can  read  it  now  without  seeing  at 
once  that  it  was  written  in  a  spirit  that  was  the  very  re 
verse  of  hostile.  To  attack  a  powerful  journal  for  com 
ments  clearly  dictated  by  friendly  feeling,  betrayed  more 
than  a  lack  of  prudence;  it  betrayed  a  lack  of  common 
sense.  Moreover,  there  were  other  serious  defects  in 
the  Letter.  He  criticised  at  some  length  certain  forms 
of  expression  used  by  one  of  his  assailants.  Cooper's 
remarks  on  language  are  almost  invariably  marked  by 
the  pretension  and  positiveness  that  characterize  the 
writers  on  usage  who  are  ignorant  of  their  ignorance ; 
but  in  this  case  they  are  in  addition  frequently  puerile. 
His  personal  references  were  not  especially  objection 
able.  But  the  best  that  can  be  asserted  of  them  is,  that 
he  said  with  good  taste  what  it  would  have  been  better 
taste  riot  to  say  at  all.  He,  however,  so  contrived  to 
state  his  position  that  he  laid  himself  open  to  the 
charge  that  he  looked  upon  the  unfavorable  opinion  ex 
pressed  of  "  The  Bravo "  as  being  instigated  by  the 
French  government,  and  that,  in  consequence,  the  ill  re 
ception  here  accorded  to  his  book  was  not  due  neces 
sarily  to  any  inferiority  in  the  work  itself,  but  to  the 
machinations  of  foreign  political  enemies.  He  did  not 
so  mean  it.  He  meant  to  imply  that  there  was  no  limit 
to  the  volunteer  baseness  of  men  who  stand  ready  to 
gratify  power  by  doing  for  it  what  it  would  gladly  have 
done,  but  would  never  ask  to  have  done.  But  the  other 


DISSATISFACTION   WITH  HIS  COUNTRYMEN.    131 

was  a  natural  inference,  and  it  was  used  against  him 
with  marked  effect. 

Worse  even  than  all  this,  he  succeeded  in  accomplish 
ing  in  the  latter  half  of  his  Letter.  A  most  exciting 
controversy  was  going  on  at  the  time  between  the  Pres 
ident  and  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  The  bitter 
ness  had  been  aggravated  into  fury  by  the  removal  of 
the  deposits.  The  Senate  had  passed  a  resolution  de 
claring  the  conduct  of  the  President  unconstitutional. 
Against  this  resolution  Jackson  had  published  a  protest. 
The  whole  country  was  in  a  flame.  Into  the  purely 
personal  controversy  in  which  he  was  engaged,  Cooper 
lugged  in  a  discussion  of  the  political  question  that  was 
agitating  the  nation.  He  remarked,  in  the  course  of  it, 
that  if  the  Union  were  ever  destroyed  by  errors  or 
faults  of  an  internal  origin,  it  would  not  be  by  execu 
tive  but  by  legislative  usurpation.  In  order  appar 
ently  to  have  neither  of  the  two  parties  in  full  sympathy 
with  him,  he  criticised  the  appointing  power  of  the 
President,  and  his  action  in  filling  embassies.  It  is  by 
the  most  strained  interpretation  of  the  danger  to  our 
institutions  from  imitation  of  those  found  in  foreign  coun 
tries,  that  the  political  discussion  was  dragged  into  this 
production.  The  force  of  folly  could  hardly  go  farther. 

The  inevitable  result  followed.  The  work  pleased 
nobody,  and  irritated  nearly  everybody.  Three  influ 
ential  journals  were  at  once  made  open  and  active  ene 
mies,  and  in  their  wake  followed  a  long  train  of  minor 
newspapers.  More  than  that  was  effected.  The  Letter 
called  down  upon  him  the  wrath  of  a  great  political 
party,  which  in  the  North  embraced  a  large  majority  of 
the  educated  class ;  and  its  hostility  followed  him  re 
lentlessly  to  the  grave.  Unwise  as  the  work  was,  how- 


132  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

ever,  there  was  nothing  in  it  to  justify  the  abuse  that  in 
consequence  fell  upon  its  author.  To  his  statement  of 
the  danger  of  legislative  usurpation  Caleb  Gushing 
made  a  dignified,  though  somewhat  rhetorical  reply; 
but  while  controverting  his  opinions,  he  spoke  of 
Cooper  personally  with  great  respect.  But  such  was 
not  the  treatment  he  generally  received.  The  language 
with  which  he  was  assailed  was  of  the  most  insulting 
and  grossly  abusive  kind.  In  those  days  it  was  called 
appalling  severity.  It  reads  now  like  very  dreary  and 
very  vulgar  billingsgate.  One  example  will  suffice. 
The  "  New  York  Mirror  "  was  then  supposed  to  be  the 
leading  literary  paper  in  New  York.  It  was  nominally 
edited  by  Morris,  Willis,  and  Fay,  though  the  two  last 
were  at  that  time  in  Europe.  Morris  is  still  remem 
bered  by  two  or  three  songs  he  wrote.  Besides  being 
an  editor,  he  held  the  position  of  general  of  militia  ; 
accordingly  he  was  often  styled  by  his  admirers,  "  he  of 
the  sword  and  pen,"  which  was  just  and  appropriate  to 
this  extent,  that  he  did  as  much  execution  with  tlie  one 
as  with  the  other.  His  paper  intimated  that  Cooper 
was  willing  to  transform  himself  into  a  baboon  for  the 
sake  of  abusing  America,  and  that  his  inordinate  ambi 
tion  prompted  him  to  distance  all  competitors,  whether 
the  race  were  fame  or  shame.  It  is  proper  to  add  that 
the  tone  of  the  "  Mirror  "  in  regard  to  Cooper  was  rad 
ically  changed  after  the  return  of  Willis  from  Europe. 

In  his  Letter  Cooper  announced  publicly,  what  he 
had  long  before  said  to  his  friends,  that  he  had  made  up 
his  mind  to  abandon  authorship.  Such  resolutions  are 
mainly  remarkable  for  the  fact  that  they  are  never  kept. 
But  the  howl  of  denunciation  that  immediately  arose 
would  never  have  suffered  him  to  keep  still.  From  this 


DISSATISFACTION   WITH  HIS  COUNTRYMEN.    133 

time  dates  the  beginning  of  the  long  and  gallant  fight  he 
carried  on  with  the  American  people.  Gallant  it  cer 
tainly  was,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  its  wisdom  ;  for 
it  was  essentially  the  fight  of  one  man  against  a  nation. 
In  politics  he  had  joined  the  Democratic  party,  but  with 
some  of  their  tenets  he  was  not  in  the  slightest  sympa 
thy.  He  was,  for  example,  a  fierce  protectionist,  and 
neglected  no  opportunity  to  cover  with  ridicule  the  doc 
trine  of  free  trade.  But  though  practically  standing 
alone,  his  courage  never  faltered.  The  storm  of  oblo 
quy  that  fell  upon  him  made  him  in  his  turn  bitter  and 
unjust  in  many  things  he  said;  but  it  never  once 
daunted  his  spirit  or  shook  his  resolution.  On  the  con 
trary,  it  almost  seems  as  if  he  were  aiming  at  unpopular 
ity  ;  at  any  rate  he  could  not  be  accused  of  seeking  the 
favor  of  the  public.  Its  acts  he  criticised,  its  opinions 
he  defied.  His  literary  reputation  and  the  sale  of  his 
works  were  seriously  affected  by  the  course  of  conduct 
he  pursued  and  the  hostility  it  provoked.  But  he  was 
of  that  nature  that  if  the  certain  result  of  following  the 
path  he  had  marked  out  for  himself  had  been  the  hatred 
of  the  world,  he  would  never  have  once  deviated  from 
it  the  breadth  of  a  hair. 

He  was  not  a  man  to  remain  on  the  defensive.  He  at 
once  began  hostilities.  His  first  attempt  was  unfortunate 
enough.  This  was  the  satirical  novel  called  "  The  Moni- 
kins,"  which  was  published  on  the  9th  of  July,  1835.  Of 
all  the  works  written  by  Cooper  this  is  most  justly  sub 
ject  to  the  criticism  conveyed  in  the  German  idiom,  that 
"  it  does  not  let  itself  be  read."  To  the  immense  major 
ity  of  even  the  author's  admirers,  it  has  been  from  the 
very  beginning  a  sealed  book.  It  is  invariably  danger 
ous  to  assert  a  negative.  But  if  a  personal  reference 


134  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE   COOPER. 

may  be  pardoned,  I  am  disposed  to  say,  that  of  the  gen 
eration  that  has  come  upon  the  stage  of  active  life  since 
Coopsr's  death,  I  am  the  only  person  who  has  read  this 
work  through.  The  knowledge  of  it  possessed  by  his 
contemporaries  did  not,  in  many  cases,  approach  to  the 
dignity  of  being  even  second-hand.  The  accounts  of  it 
that  have  come  under  my  own  notice,  seem  often  to  have 
been  gathered  from  reviews  of  it  which  had  themselves 
been  written  by  men  who  had  never  read  the  original. 
It  is  no  difficult  matter  to  explain  the  neglect  into  which 
it  immediately  sank.  The  work  was  a  satire  mainly 
upon  certain  of  the  social  and  political  features  to  bo 
found  in  England  and  America,  designated  respectively 
as  Leaphigh  and  Leaplow ;  though  one  or  two  things 
characteristic  of  France  were  transferred  to  the  former 
country.  But  satire  Cooper  could  not  write.  The  power 
of  vigorous  invective  he  had  in  a  marked  degree.  But 
the  wit  which  plays  while  it  wounds,  which  while  saying 
one  thing  means  another,  which  deals  in  far-off  sugges 
tion  and  remote  allusion,  this  was  something  entirely 
unsuited  to  the  directness  and  energy  of  his  intellect. 
Moreover,  some  of  his  most  marked  literary  defects 
were  seen  here  exaggerated  and  unrelieved.  In  many 
of  his  novels  there  is  prolixity  in  the  introduction.  Still 
in  these  it  is  often  compensated  by  descriptions  of  nat 
ural  scenery  so  life-like  and  so  enthusiastic  that  even 
the  most  blase  of  novel  readers  is  carried  along  in  a  state 
of  what  may  be  called  endurable  tediousness.  But  in 
"  The  Monikins  "  the  introductory  tediousness  is  unen 
durable.  It  is  not  until  we  are  nearly  half-way  into  the 
work  and  have  actually  entered  upon  the  voyage  to  the 
land  of  the  monkeys,  that  the  dullness  at  all  disappears. 
After  the  country  of  Leaphigh  is  reached  the  story  is 


DISSATISFACTION   WITH  HIS   COUNTRYMEN.    135 

far  less  absurd  and  more  entertaining ;  though  Cooper's 
descriptions  are  of  the  nature  of  caricature  rather  than 
of  satire.  There  are,  however,  many  shrewd  and  caus 
tic  remarks  scattered  up  and  down  the  pages  of  the  lat 
ter  part  of  the  work,  but  they  will  never  be  known  to 
anybody,  for  nobody  will  read  the  book  through. 

The  work  fell  perfectly  dead  from  the  press.  But  its 
failure  had  not  the  least  effect  in  deterring  Cooper  from 
continuing  in  the  course  upon  which  he  had  started. 
During  the  years  1836, 1837,  and  1838,  he  published  ten 
volumes  of  travels.  In  these  he  repeated,  with  empha 
sis,  everything  that  he  had  uttered  privately  or  had  im 
plied  in  his  previous  publications.  The  first  of  these 
works  was  entitled  "  Sketches  of  Switzerland."  It  was 
divided  into  two  parts.  The  first,  which  was  published 
on  May  21,  1836,  gave  an  account  of  his  residence  and 
excursions  in  that  country  during  the  summer  and  au 
tumn  of  1828.  The  second  part,  which  appeared  Octo 
ber  8,  1836,  was  largely  taken  up  with  accounts  of  mat 
ters  and  things  in  Paris  during  the  winter  of  1831-32,  a 
journey  up  the  Rhine,  and  a  second  visit  to  Switzer 
land.  These  two  parts  made  four  volumes.  The  re 
maining  six  had  the  general  title  of  "  Gleanings  in 
Europe,"  and  two  each  were  devoted  to  France,  Eng 
land,  and  Italy.  The  first  of  these  was  published  March 
4,  1837;  the  second  September  2  of  the  same  year; 
and  the  third,  May  26,  1838.  They  were  written  in 
the  form  of  letters,  and  were  pretty  certainly  made  up 
from  letters  actually  written  or  memoranda  taken  at  the 
time.  But  they  were  likewise  largely  interpersed  with 
the  expression  of  views  and  feelings  that  he  had  learned 
to  adopt  and  cherish  since  his  return  to  his  native  land. 

In  the  case  of  England  and  America,  in  particular,  his 


136  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

remarks  may  have  been  full  of  light,  but  they  did  not 
exhibit  sweetness.  Probably  no  set  of  travels  was  ever 
more  elaborately  contrived  to  arouse  the  wrath  of  read 
ers  in  both  countries,  nor  one  that  more  successfully 
fulfilled  its  mission.  His  keen  observation  let  no  strik? 
ing  traits  escape  notice.  The  individual  Englishmen  he 
meets  and  describes  could  furnish  entertainment  only  to 
men  that  were  not  themselves  Englishmen.  There  is, 
for  instance,  the  sea-captain  who  endeavors  to  compen 
sate  for  his  lack  of  energy  by  giving  his  passenger  an 
account  of  the  marvelous  riches  of  the  nobility  and 
gentry.  Even  more  graphically  drawn  is  the  islander 
he  met  in  the  Bernese  Oberland,  who  appeared  to  re 
gard  the  peak  of  the  Jungfrau  with  contempt,  as  if  it 
did  very  well  for  Switzerland  ;  and  who,  when  his  atten 
tion  was  called  to  a  singularly  beautiful  effect  upon  a 
mountain  top,  began  to  tell  how  cheap  mutton  was  in 
Herefordshire.  Nor  were  many  of  his  general  remarks 
flattering.  As  one  descended  in  the  social  scale  ha 
thought  the  English  the  most  artificial  people  on  earth. 
Large  numbers  of  them  mistook  a  labored,  feigned, 
heartless  manner  for  high-breeding.  The  mass  of  them 
acted  in  society  like  children  who  have  had  their  hair 
combed  and  faces  washed,  to  be  shown  up  in  the  draw 
ing-room.  They  were  conventional  everywhere.  The 
very  men  whom  he  met  after  his  arrival  in  the  streets 
of  Southampton,  all  looked  as  if  they  had  been  born 
with  hat-brushes  and  clothes-brushes  in  their  hands.  As 
a  race,  moreover,  they  had  special  defects.  They  lacked 
delicacy  and  taste  in  conferring  obligations  or  paying 
compliments.  They  were  utterly  indifferent  to  the  feel 
ings  of  others.  There  was  a  national  propensity  to 
blackguardism ;  and  the  English  press,  in  particular,  ca- 


DISSATISFACTION   WITH  HIS  COUNTRYMEN     137 

lumniated  its  enemies,  both  political  and  personal,  with 
the  coarsest  vituperation. 

These  were  not  the  sort  of  remarks  to  draw  favorable 
notices  from  British  periodicals.  Cooper  soon  had  an 
opportunity  to  verify,  in  his  own  experience,  the  truth 
of  the  last  of  his  observations  that  have  been  cited. 
Harsh,  however,  as  was  his  language  about  England,  it 
bore  little  comparison  to  the  severity  with  which  he 
expressed  himself  about  America.  The  attacks  on  the 
newspaper  press  belong  not  here,  but  to  the  account 
of  the  war  he  waged  with  it.  The  omission,  however, 
will  hardly  be  noticed  in  the  multitude  of  other  matters 
he  found  to  criticise.  Manners,  customs,  society,  were 
touched  throughout  with  an  unsparing  hand.  Common 
crimes,  he  admitted,  were  not  so  general  with  us  as  in 
Europe,  though  mainly  because  we  were  exempt  from 
temptation,  but  uncommon  meannesses  did  abound  in  a 
large  circle  of  our  population.  Our  two  besetting  sins 
were  canting  and  hypocrisy.  We  had  far  less  publicity 
in  our  pleasures  than  other  nations ;  yet  we  had  scarcely 
any  domestic  privacy  on  account  of  the  neighborhood. 
The  whole  country  was  full  of  a  village-like  gossip 
which  caused  every  man  to  think  that  he  was  a  judge 
of  character,  when  he  was  not  even  a  judge  of  facts. 
In  most  matters  we  were  humble  imitators  of  the  Eng 
lish.  All  their  mistakes  and  misjudgments  we  adopted 
except  such  as  impaired  our  good  opinion  of  ourselves. 
It  was  a  consequence  that  all  their  errors  about  foreign 
countries  had  become  our  errors  also.  In  a  few  cases, 
indeed,  we  were  compelled  to  be  American ;  but  when 
ever  there  was  a  tolerable  chance  we  endeavored  to  be 
come  second-class  English.  Wherever  making  money 
was  in  view,  we  had  but  one  soul  and  that  was  inven- 


138  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

tive  enough ;  but  when  it  came  to  spending  it  we  did 
not  know  how  to  set  about  it  except  by  routine.  No 
people  traveled  as  much  as  we  ;  none  traveled  with  so 
little  enjoyment  or  so  few  comforts.  Taste  and  knowl 
edge  and  tone  were  too  little  concentrated  anywhere, 
too  much  diffused  everywhere,  to  make  head  against  the 
advances  of  an  overwhelming  mediocrity.  Of  society 
there  was  but  little ;  for  what  it  suited  the  caprice  of 
certain  people  to  call  such  was  little  more  than  the  noisy, 
screeching,  hoydenish  romping  of  both  sexes.  The  taint 
of  provincialism  was  diffused  over  all  feelings  and  be 
liefs.  Of  arts  and  letters  the  country  possessed  none 
or  next  to  none.  Moreover,  there  was  no  genuine  sym 
pathy  with  either.  To  all  this  dismal  prospect  there 
was  slight  hope  of  improvement,  because  there  was  a 
disposition  to  resent  any  intimation  that  we  could  be 
better  than  we  were  at  present. 

It  would  be  a  gross  error  to  infer  the  general  charac 
ter  of  Cooper's  travels  from  these  extracts.  They  are 
gathered  together  from  ten  volumes,  without  any  of  the 
attendant  statements  by  which  they  are  there  in  many 
cases  modified.  Equally  erroneous  would  it  be  to  sup 
pose  that  he  did  not  find  much  to  praise  as  well  as,  to 
condemn  in  both  England  and  America.  These  ex 
tracts,  however,  explain  the  almost  savage  vituperation 
with  which  Cooper  was  thenceforth  followed  in  the 
press  of  the  two  countries.  The  works  themselves  met 
with  a  very  slight  sale  :  none  of  them  ever  passed  into 
a  second  edition.  Men  were  not  likely  to  read  with 
alacrity,  however  much  they  might  with  profit,  unfavor 
able  opinions  entertained  of  themselves.  Cooper  him 
self  could  not  have  hoped  for  much  success  for  his 
strictures.  In  fact,  he  expressly  declared  the  contrary. 


DISSATISFACTION   WITH  HIS   COUNTRYMEN.    139 

The  most  he  should  expect,  he  said,  would  be  the  se 
cret  assent  of  the  wise  and  good,  the  expressed  censure 
of  the  numerous  class  of  the  vapid  and  ignorant,  the 
surprise  of  the  mercenary  and  the  demagogue,  and  the 
secret  satisfaction  of  the  few  who  should  come  after 
him  who  would  take  an  interest  in  his  name. 

Notwithstanding  the  ferocious  criticism  with  which 
they  were  assailed  at  the  time  and  the  forgetfulness  into 
which  they  have  now  fallen,  Cooper's  accounts  of  the 
countries  in  which  he  lived  are  among  the  best  of  their 
kind.  Books  of  travel  are  from  their  very  nature  of  tem 
porary  interest.  It  requires  peculiar  felicity  of  manner 
to  make  up  long  for  the  fresher  matter  about  foreign 
lands  which  newer  books  contain.  Striking  descriptions 
and  acute  observations  will  still,  however,  reward  the 
reader  of  Cooper's  sketches.  There  are  often  displayed 
in  them  a  vigor  and  a  political  sagacity  which  of  them 
selves  would  justify  his  being  styled  the  most  robust  of 
American  authors.  Pointed  assertions  are  scattered  up 
and  down  his  pages.  Could,  for  instance,  one  of  the 
dangers  of  a  democracy  be  more  clearly  and  ill-naturedly 
put  than  by  his  statement,  that  the  whole  science  of 
government  in  what  are  called  free  states,  is  getting  to 
be  a  strife  in  mystification,  in  which  the  great  secret  is 
to  persuade  the  governed  that  he  is  in  fact  the  gov 
ernor  ?  His  books,  moreover,  while  they  reflect  his 
prejudices,  show  an  honest  desire  to  be  just.  He  un 
doubtedly  preferred  the  Continent  to  England.  But  in 
his  account  of  that  country,  while  he  had  the  unfairness 
of  dislike,  he  never  had  the  unfairness  of  intentional 
misrepresentation.  There  is  nothing  of  that  exulting 
yell  with  which  the  British  traveler  of  those  days  fell 
foul  of  some  specimen  of  American  ill-breeding  or 


140  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

American  bumptiousness.  Nor  did  he  fail  to  pay  a 
high  tribute  to  what  was  best  in  English  society  or 
English  character.  The  gentlemen  of  that  country,  in 
appearance,  in  attainments,  in  manliness,  and  he  was  in 
clined  to  add  in  principles,  he  placed  at  the  head  of 
their  class  in  Christendom.  His  censure  of  America 
and  the  Americans  was  not  at  all  in  the  nature  of  indis 
criminate  abuse.  The  fault  he  found  with  his  country 
men  was  based  mainly  upon  their  mistaken  opinion  of 
themselves  and  of  their  advantages  and  disadvantages. 
You  boast,  he  practically  said  to  them,  of  the  superior 
ity  of  your  scenery,  in  which  you  are  not  to  be  com 
pared  with  Europe  ;  but  you  constantly  abuse  your  cli 
mate  which  is  equal  to,  if  not  finer,  than  that  of  any 
region  in  the 'Old  World.  You  stand  up  manfully  for 
your  manners  and  tastes,  which  you  ought  to  correct ; 
but  you  are  incessantly  apologizing  for  your  institutions 
of  which  you  ought  to  be  proud.  The  defects  imputed 
in  Europe  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States,  such 
as  the  want  of  morals,  honesty,  order,  decency,  liberal 
ity,  and  religion,  were  not  at  all  our  defects.  These,  in 
fact  were,  as  the  world  goes,  the  strong  points  of  Amer 
ican  character.  On  the  other  hand,  those  on  which  we 
prided  ourselves,  intelligence,  taste,  manners,  education 
as  applied  to  all  beyond  the  base  of  society,  were  the 
very  points  upon  which  we  should  do  well  to  be  silent. 
This  is  certainly  not  an  extreme  position.  But  men  are 
far  more  affected  by  the  blame  bestowed  upon  their 
foibles  than  by  the  praise  given  to  their  virtues  ;  and 
both  in  England  and  America  the  censures  were  re 
membered  and  the  commendations  forgotten.  Other 
circumstances  also  came  in  now  to  add  to  his  unpopular 
ity  in  his  own  country.  A  local  quarrel  in  which  he 


DISSATISFACTION   WITH  HIS   COUNTRYMEN.    141 

accidently  became  concerned,  was  followed  by  conse 
quences  which  affected  his  estimation  throughout  the 
whole  land ;  but  the  details  of  this  will  require  a  sepa 
rate  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

1837-1838. 

THREE  miles  from  Cooperstown,  on  the  western  side 
of  Otsego  Lake,  a  low,  wooded  point  of  land  projects 
for  some  distance  into  the  water.  It  combines  two 
characteristics  of  an  attractive  resort :  beauty  of  scenery 
and  easiness  of  access.  On  these  accounts  Cooper's 
father  had  refused  to  sell  it  when  he  disposed  of  his 
other  lands.  He  had,  in  fact,  specially  reserved  it  for 
his  own  use,  and  for  that  of  his  descendants.  In  1808, 
a  year  before  his  death,  he  drew  up  his  will.  In  it  he 
made  a  particular  devise  of  this  spot.  "  I  give  and 
bequeath,"  ran  the  words  of  the  document,  "  my  place, 
called  Myrtle  Grove,  on  the  west  side  of  the  Lake 
Otsego,  to  all  my  descendants  in  common  until  the  year 
1850 ;  then  to  be  inherited  by  the  youngest  thereof 
bearing  my  name."  Two  small  buildings  had  been  suc 
cessively  erected  by  him  on  the  spot.  The  first  he  tore 
down  himself,  but  the  second  was  set  on  fire  after  his 
death,  by  the  carelessness  of  trespassers  using  it,  and 
burned  to  the  ground.  Shortly  after  1821,  the  only  rep 
resentative  of  the  family  living  in  Cooperstown  who  was 
of  proper  age  to  be  consulted,  gave  his  consent,  so  far  as 
he  was  concerned,  to  the  erection  of  a  new  building  by 
the  community.  From  that  time  the  Point  came  to  be 
a  place  of  general  resort.  To  it  fishing  and  picnic  par 
ties  were  in  the  habit  of  repairing.  An  impression 


THE  THREE  MILE  POINT  CONTROVERSY.       143 

sprang  up,  moreover,  that  the  spot  was  public  property. 
This  impression  in  the  course  of  years  advanced  to  the 
dignity  of  positive  assertion.  It  became  in  time  a  uni 
versally  accepted  belief  in  the  minds  of  the  citizens  that 
the  place  belonged  to  them.  It  then  only  remained  to 
furnish  the  explanation  of  how  it  had  happened  to  come 
into  their  possession.  This  was  no  difficult  achievement. 
The  story  was  soon  generally  received  that  Cooper's  fa 
ther,  instead  of  permitting  the  public  to  use  the  Point, 
had  actually  made  a  gift  of  it  to  the  public. 

When  Cooper  took  up  his  summer  residence  in  the 
village,  after  his  return  from  Europe,  he  found  the  no 
tion  prevalent  that  the  place  in  question  belonged  to  the 
community.  As  executor  of  his  father's  will  he  took 
pains  to  correct  the  error.  He  informed  his  fellow-citi 
zens  that  the  Point  was  private  property,  and  not  pub 
lic  ;  and  that  while  he  had  no  desire  to  prevent  them 
from  resorting  to  it,  he  was  determined  to  insist  upon 
the  recognition  of  the  real  ownership.  He  might  as 
well  have  talked  to  the  winds.  The  community  did  not 
bother  itself  about  examining  the  question  of  title.  It 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  using  the  Point  without  asking 
any  one's  consent,  and  the  Point  it  purposed  to  keep  on 
using  in  the  same  way. 

Matters  reached  a  crisis  in  1837.  The  building 
erected  on  the  spot  had  become  dilapidated.  Workmen 
were  sent  out  to  repair  it,  without  going  through  the 
formality  of  consulting  the  owners  of  the  property.  A 
tree  was  also  cut  down,  which,  on  account  of  certain  as 
sociations  connected  with  his  father,  Cooper  valued  par 
ticularly.  This  was  not  the  way  to  win  over  to  the  view 
of  the  community  the  executor  of  the  property.  He 
sent  a  card  at  once  to  the  editor  of  the  Democratic 


144  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

newspaper  of  the  village,  stating  that  the  Point  was 
private  property,  and  cautioning  the  public  against  in 
juring  the  trees.  Nothing,  however,  was  said  about 
trespassing.  The  card  came  too  late  for  publication 
that  week  and  before  another  number  of  the  paper  ap 
peared,  rumor  of  its  existence  had  got  about.  Its  re 
ported  character  created  ill-feeling,  and  messages  and 
even  threats  were  sent  to  Cooper  on  the  subject.  These 
had  the  effect  which  might  have  been  expected.  He 
withdrew  the  original  card  and  published  in  its  stead  a 
simple,  ordinary  notice  of  warning  against  trespassing 
on  the  Point,  with  a  few  additional  facts.  The  notice, 
which  is  dated  July  22,  1837,  reads  as  follows :  — 

"  The  public  is  warned  against  trespassing  on  the 
Three  Mile  Point,  it  being  the  intention  of  the  subscriber 
rigidly  to  enforce  the  title  of  the  estate,  of  which  he  is 
the  representative,  to  the  same.  The  public  has  not, 
nor  has  it  ever  had,  any  right  to  the  same  beyond  what 
has  been  conceded  by  the  liberality  of  the  owners." 

The  notice  was  signed  by  Cooper  as  the  executor  of 
his  father's  estate.  Great  was  the  excitement  in  the 
village  when  it  was  published.  A  hand-bill  was  imme 
diately  put  into  circulation  calling  a  meeting  of  the  cit 
izens^,  to  take  into  consideration  the  propriety  of  defend 
ing  their  rights  against  the  arrogant  claims  and  assumed 
authority  of  "one  J.  Fenimore  Cooper."  The  meeting 
was  accordingly  held.  There  was  little  difference  of 
sentiment  among  those  present.  All  were  animated,  ac 
cording  to  the  newspaper  reports,  by  the  determination 
to  use  the  Three  Mile  Point  without  being  indebted  to 
the  liberality  of  Cooper  or  any  one  else.  Stirring 
speeches  were  made.  Two  or  three  persons  were  anx 
ious  to  delay  any  action  until  the  question  of  title  had 


THE  THREE  MILE  POINT  CONTROVERSY    145 

been  examined.  This  proposition  was  deemed  by  the 
immense  majority  of  those  present  to  have  a  truckling 
character,  and  consequently  met  with  no  favor.  The 
meeting,  accordingly,  found  immediate  relief  for  its  feel 
ings  in  the  usual  American  way,  by  passing  a  series  of 
resolutions.  .The  vigor  of  these  was  out  of  all  propor 
tion  to  the  sense.  The  disposition  to  defy  Cooper  shot, 
in  some  instances,  indeed,  beyond  its  proper  mark,  and 
extended  even  to  the  rules  of  grammar.  After  reciting 
in  a  preamble  the  facts  as  they  understood  them,  the 
citizens  present  went  on  to  express  their  determination 
and  opinions  as  follows  :  — 

"  Resolved,  By  the  aforesaid  citizens  that  we  will 
wholly  disregard  the  notice  given  by  James  F.  Cooper, 
forbidding  the  public  to  frequent  the  Three  Mile  Point. 

"Resolved,  That  inasmuch  as  it  is  well  known  that 
the  late  William  Cooper  intended  the  use  of  the  Point 
in  question  for  the  citizens  of  this  village  and  its  vicin 
ity,  we  deem  it  no  more  than  a  proper  respect  for  the 
memory  and  intentions  of  the  father,  that  the  son  should 
recognize  the  claim  of  the  citizens  to  the  use  of  the 
premises,  even  had  he  the  power  to  deny  it. 

"  Resolved,  That  we  will  hold  his  threat  to  enforce  ti 
tle  to  the  premises,  as  we  do  his  whole  conduct  in  rela 
tion  to  the  matter,  in  perfect  contempt. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  language  .  and  conduct  of 
Cooper,  in  his  attempts  to  procure  acknowledgements  of 
( liberality,'  and  his  attempt  to  force  the  citizens  into 
asking  his  permission  to  use  the  premises,  has  been  such 
as  to  render  himself  odious  to  a  greater  portion  of  the 
citizens  of  this  community. 

"  Resolved,  That  we  do  recommend  and  request  the 
trustees  of  the  Franklin  Library,  in  this  village,  to  re- 
10 


146  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

move  all  books,  of  which  Cooper  is  the  author,  from 
said  library. 

"  Resolved  also,  That  we  will  and  do  denounce  any 
man  as  sycophant,  who  has,  or  shall,  ask  permission  of 
James  F.  Cooper  to  visit  the  Point  in  question. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  proceedings  of  this  meeting  be 
signed  by  the  chairman  and  secretary,  and  published  in 
the  village  papers." 

Whatever  else  these  proceedings  show,  they  make  it 
clear  that  the  people  of  Cooperstown  had  not  well  im 
proved  the  opportunity  afforded  by  his  residence  among 
them,  of  becoming  well  acquainted  with  the  character  of 
their  distinguished  townsman.  Still  there  was  knowl- 
.edge  enough  about  him  to  make  the  officers  of  the  meet 
ing  unwilling  to  publish  the  resolutions  as  they  had  been 
•ordered.  He  was  not  a  man  to  be  trifled  with ;  and  no 
one  cared  to  make  himself  personally  responsible  for 
what  had  been  said.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  secretary 
of  the  meeting  furnished  Cooper  with  a  copy  of  the 
resolutions  ;  and  it  was  the  latter  that  first  caused  them 
to  be  printed.  But  the  story  of  the  meeting  speedily 
found  its  way  into  the  newspapers.  In  the  accounts  of 
the  proceedings  that  were  in  circulation,  it  was  said  that 
a  resolution  had  been  passed  that  the  works  of  the  nov 
elist  should  be  taken  from  the  library  and  publicly 
burned.  This  was  caught  up  by  the  press  and  repeated 
everywhere  throughout  the  country.  To  this  day  the 
baseless  tradition  lingers  in  Cooperstown  itself,  that  this 
act  was  not  only  determined  upon  but  actually  done. 
The  matter  doubtless  was  discussed  among  the  other 
sage  proposals  that  were  brought  forward  at  this  meet 
ing  ;  and  it  may  be  true,  as  was  afterwards  suspected, 
that  the  original  resolution  on  this  point  was  modified 
before  it  was  allowed  to  go  out  to  the  public. 


THE  THREE  MILE  POINT  CONTROVERSY.    147 

Under  the  circumstances  only  one  result  was  possible. 
The  community  were  very  speedily  satisfied  that  they 
did  not  own  the  Point,  and  were  equally  convinced  that 
their  prospect  of  obtaining  possession  of  it  by  clamor 
was  far  from  good.  Two  letters,  marked  by  anything 
but  timidity  or  amiability,  Cooper  wrote  to  the  Demo 
cratic  newspaper  of  the  village.  In  them  he  gave  fully 
all  the  facts  in  the  case.  To  the  assertion  paraded  in 
many  of  the  "Whig  journals  of  the  state,  that  this  meet 
ing  showed  the  spirit  of  the  people  in  Cooperstown,  he 
made  an  indignant  reply.  Such  a  remark,  he  said,  was 
a  libel  on  the  character  of  the  place.  The  meeting,  he 
declared,  was  not  composed  of  a  fourth  part  of  the  pop 
ulation,  or  a  hundredth  part  of  the  respectability  of 
the  village.  The  resolutions  he  described  as  being  the 
work  of  presuming  boys,  who  swagger  of  time  imme 
morial  ;  of  strangers  who  had  lived  but  a  brief  time  in 
the  county ;  and  of  a  few  disreputable  persons  who, 
bent  on  construing  liberty  entirely  on  their  own  side, 
interposed  against  palpable  rights  and  sacred  family 
feelings  their  gossiping  facts,  their  grasping  rapacity, 
and  their  ruthless  disposition  to  destroy  whatever  they 
could  not  control.  "  There  is  but  one  legal  public,"  he 
defiantly  concluded  his  first  letter,  *'  and  that  acts  un 
der  the  obligation  of  precise  oaths,  through  prescribed 
forms,  and  on  constitutional  principles.  Let  *  excite 
ment  '  be  flourished  as  it  may,  this  is  the  only  public  to 
which  I  shall  submit  the  decision  of  my  rights.  So  far 
as  my  means  allow,  insult  shall  be  avenged  by  the  law, 
violence  repelled  by  the  strong  hand,  falsehood  put  to 
shame  by  truth,  and  sophistry  exposed  by  reason." 

It  is  perfectly  clear  that  on  the  merits  of  this  contro 
versy  Cooper  was  wholly  in  the  right.  The  bluster  of 


148  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

these  resolutions  exhausted  all  the  courage  of  his  oppo 
nents.  The  question  of  ownership  was  at  once  settled 
definitely  and  forever.  No  one  on  the  spot  ever  ques 
tioned  the  point  any  farther,  though  the  original  false 
hood  was  steadily  repeated  by  newspapers  at  a  dis 
tance,  and  apparently  never  once  contradicted  after  its 
untruth  had  been  shown.  Some  may  think  the  result 
might  have  been  reached  by  milder  means,  but  the  spirit 
shown  at  the  meeting  renders  this  more  than  doubtful. 
Cooper  even  had  to  pay  for  the  insertion  of  his  letters 
in  the  village  newspaper.  Unfortunately  the  ill-feeling 
aroused  did  not  stop  here.  It  gave  rise  to  what  may 
be  described  as  a  semi-political  controversy  —  that  is,  a 
controversy  in  which  one  party  attacks  a  man,  and  the 
party  to  which  he  belongs  does  not  think  it  expedient 
or  worth  while  to  defend  him.  The  libel  suits  to  which 
it  directly  or  indirectly  led  with  the  Whig  newspapers  of 
the  state  will  demand  a  separate  chapter.  Before  they 
were  well  under  way,  however,  the  novelist  made  up  his 
mind  to  right  himself  in  another  manner,  and  brought 
out  a  work  of  fiction  which  seemed  expressly  contrived 
to  meet  the  thought  of  the  sacred  writer  who  wished  his 
adversary  had  written  a  book. 

Cooper  determined  to  write  a  story  in  which  he  would 
set  forth  the  principles  involved  in  the  controversy  about 
the  Point.  There  is  perhaps  no  subject  that  cannot  be 
made  interesting  by  the  right  treatment.  But  he  was 
now  in  a  state  of  mind  that  would  not  have  permitted 
him  to  discuss  any  matter  of  this  nature  in  the  spirit  that 
belongs  to  the  composition  of  a  work  of  the  imagina 
tion.  The  dispute  had  embittered  his  feelings  already 
sore.  It  had  tended  to  give  him  a  still  more  distorted 
view  of  the  country  to  which  he  had  come  back.  So 


THE  THREE  MILE  P01KT  CONTROVERSY   149 

completely  had  his  feelings  swung  around  that  he  now 
had  an  eye  for  little  but  the  worst  features  of  the  na 
tional  character.  Passion  had  largely  unbalanced  his 
judgment.  Ancient  fable  has  pointed  out  the  danger 
of  falling  under  the  fascinations  of  the  sirens ;  but  even 
that  seems  preferable  to  becoming  bewitched  by  the 
furies. 

Still  he  could  not  well  make  a  book  out  of  this  one 
event.  It  could  be  used  to  suit  all  his  purposes,  how 
ever,  by  being  introduced  as  an  incident  of  an  ordinary 
tale.  In  this  way  his  side  of  the  story  would  travel  as 
far  as  the  false  assertions  about  his  conduct  in  the  matter 
which  had  been  circulated  not  only  over  America  but 
over  Europe.  He  also  set  out  to  bring  together  in  the 
work  he  was  contemplating  all  the  things  that  he  looked 
upon  with  disapprobation  and  dislike  in  the  social  life 
of  this  country.  His  original  intention  was  to  begin  a 
story  with  the  landing  here  of  an  American  family  long 
resident  in  Europe.  Happily  he  was  induced  to  give 
an  account  of  the  voyage  home,  and  this  in  the  end  ne 
cessitated  the  division  of  the  work  into  two  parts.  Ac 
cordingly  on  the  16th  of  August,  1837,  appeared  the 
novel  of  "  Homeward  Bound,"  followed  in  November 
of  the  same  year  by  its  sequel,  entitled  "  Home  as 
Found."  The  leading  characters  are  the  same  in  both 
tales,  but  the  events  are  entirely  unlike.  The  scene  of 
the  first  is  laid  wholly  on  the  water.  In  its  movement, 
its  variety  of  incidents,  and  the  spirit  and  energy  with 
which  they  are  told,  it  is  one  of  the  best  of  Cooper's  sea- 
novels.  Nor  is  this  estimate  seriously  impaired  by  the 
fact  that  it  is  in  some  places  marred  by  controversial 
discussions  on  liberty  and  equality,  and  by  the  withering 
exposure  of  views  that  no  man  maintained  whose  opin- 


150  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

ions  were  worth  regarding.  But  these  are  only  occa- 
ional  blemishes.  They  do  not  materially  interfere  with 
the  progress  of  the  story,  which  moves  on  with  little  va 
riation  of  interest  to  the  end.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
characters  are  generally  as  uninteresting  as  the  events 
are  exciting.  The  chief  ones  among  them  have  all 
reached  that  supreme  refinement  which  justifies  them  in 
feeling  and  decisively  pronouncing  that  whatever  is  done 
by  anybody  but  themselves  is  coarse.  But  in  this  work 
the  personages  are  so  subordinate  to  the  scenes  that  any 
failure  in  representing  the  former  is  more  than  counter 
balanced  by  the  success  shown  in  depicting  the  latter. 

The  reverse  was  the  fact  when  the  sequel  followed. 
In  this  the  characters  and  their  views  became  prominent, 
and  the  events  were  of  slight  importance.  "  Home  as 
Found  "  was  far  poorer  than  "  Homeward  Bound  "  was 
good.  Never  was  a  more  unfortunate  work  written  by 
any  author.  This  is  the  fact,  whether  it  be  looked  at 
from  the  literary  or  the  popular  point  of  view.  For  the 
latter  it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  opinions  about  Amer 
ica  which  have  already  been  given  in  the  account  of  his 
European  travels  were  more  than  reenforced.  /  He  said 
again  what  he  had  said  before,  and  he  took  pains  to  add 
a  great  deal  that  had  been  left  unsaid.  The  new  matter 
surpassed  in  the  energy  of  invective  the  old,  and  its 
attack  was  more  concentrated.  There  were  in  the  novel, 
to  be  sure,  the  remarks  that  had  now  got  to  be  habitual 
with  Cooper  upon  the  provincialism  of  the  whole  coun 
try  ;  but  it  was  upon  New  York  city  that  the  vials  of 
his  wrath  were  especially  poured.  The  town,  according 
to  the  view  here  expressed  of  it,  was  nothing  more 
than  a  huge  expansion  of  commonplace  things.  It  was 
a  confused  and  tasteless  collection  of  flaring  red  brick 


CRITICISM  OF  AMERICA  AND  AMERICANS.     151 

houses,  martin-box  churches,  and  colossal  taverns.  But 
the  assault  made  upon  its  external  appearance  bore  no 
comparison  to  that  upon  its  internal  life.  The  city  in  a 
moral  sense  resembled,  according  to  Cooper,  a  huge  en 
campment.  It  stood  at  the  farthest  remove  from  the 
intellectual  supremacy  and  high  tone  of  a  genuine  cap 
ital  as  distinguished  from  a  great  trading  port.  In  its 
gayeties  he  saw  little  better  than  the  struggles  of  an  un- 
instructed  taste,  if  indeed  that  could  properly  be  styled 
gay  which  was  only  a  strife  in  prodigality  and  parade. 
The  conversation  of  the  elders  was  entirely  about  the 
currency,  the  price  of  lots,  and  the  latest  speculations  in 
towns.  The  younger  society  was  made  up  of  babbling 
misses,  who  prattled  as  waters  flow,  without  conscious 
ness  of  effort,  and  of  whiskered  masters  who  fancied 
Broadway  the  world ;  and  the  two  together  looked  upon 
the  flirtations  of  miniature  drawing-rooms  as  the  ideal 
of  human  life  in  its  loftiest  aspects.  Upon  the  literati 
the  attack  was  even  more  savage.  He  described  this 
appellation  as  being  given  to  the  most  incorrigible  mem 
bers  of  the  book  clubs  of  New  York.  These  had  been 
laboriously  employed  in  puffing  each  other  into  celebrity 
for  many  weary  years,  but  still  remained  just  as  vapid, 
as  conceited,  as  ignorant,  as  imitative,  as  dependent,  and/ 
as  provincial  as  ever. 

It  is  not  an  easy  matter  to  condense  the  bitterness  of 
two  volumes  into  a  few  sentences.  Enough  has  been 
given,  however,  to  show  the  character  of  the  strictures. 
Whatever  may  be  thought  of  their  justice,  few  will  be 
disposed  to  deny  their  vigor.  But  Cooper,  unfortu 
nately  for  himself,  was  not  satisfied  with  demolishing 
what  seemed  poor  in  his  eyes.  He  undertook  the 
business  of  reconstruction,  and  set  up  an  ideal  of  how 


152  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

things  ought  to  be.  His  main  agents  in  this  work  were 
the  members  of  the  Effingham  family,  whom  lie  had 
brought  over  from  Europe  in  "  Homeward  Bound."  In 
these  and  the  train  dependent  upon  them,  we  were  to 
find  realized  that  pure  and  perfect  social  state  which  he 
contemplated  in  his  own  mind.  To  them  were  added  a 
few  survivors  from  the  old  families,  as  he  termed  them, 
which  after  a  manner  had  ridden  out  the  social  gale  that 
had  made  shipwreck  of  so  many  of  their  original  com 
panions.  Out  of  these  materials  Cooper  attempted  to 
build  his  ideal  framework  of  a  life  in  which  men 
thought  rationally  and  lived  nobly.  It  was  here  he 
made  his  mistake,  and  it  was  a  signal  one.  His  inabil 
ity  to  portray  the  higher  types  of  character  was  an 
absolute  bar  to  success.  This  was  largely  due  to  his  in 
ability  to  catch  and  reproduce  the  tone  of  polished  con 
versation.  Never  was  his  weakness  in  this  respect 
more  painfully  manifested  than  in  "  Home  as  Found." 
He  could  appreciate  such  conversation  ;  he  could  bear  a 
part  in  it ;  but  he  could  not  represent  it.  His  characters 
taken  from  low  life,  whatever  critics  may  say,  have  us 
ually  a  marked  individuality.  But  whenever  Cooper 
sought  to  draw  the  men  and  women  of  cultivated  society 
he  achieved  at  best  a  doubtful  success.  In  this  instance 
he  tried  to  make  them  and  their  words  and  deeds  the 
vehicle  of  reproof  and  satire.  His  failure  was  absolute. 
Modern  culture,  we  all  know,  consists  largely  in  the 
most  refined  method  of  finding  fault.  But  this  his  ideal 
family  had  not  reached.  An  essentially  coarse  method 
of  finding  fault  was  the  only  one  to  which  it  had  at 
tained.  Never,  indeed,  was  a  more  bumptious,  conceited, 
and  disagreeable  set  of  personages  created  by  an  author, 
under  the  impression  that  they  were  the  reverse.  The 


-         *^ 

CRITICISM  OF  AMERICA  AND  AMERICAWg   153 

simple-minded,  thoughtful,  and  upright  Mr. 
can  speedily  be  dismissed  as  merely  a  mild  type  of 
Not  so  with  his  daughter  Eve,  and  his  cousin  John  Ef- 
fingham.  The  latter  plays  the  part  of  critic  of  his  coun 
try  and  countrymen.  It  seems  hardly  possible  that  in 
this  narrow-minded,  disagreeable,  and  essentially  vulgar 
character,  Cooper  could  have  fancied  he  was  creating 
anything  but  a  contemptible  boor.  The  contrast  be 
tween  what  is  said  of  him,  and  what  is  said  by  him, 
almost  reaches  the  comic.  We  read  constantly  of  his 
caustic  satire  ;  we  find  little  of  it  in  his  conversation. 
His  fine  face  is,  according  to  the  author,  always  express 
ing  contempt  and  sarcasm ;  but  the  examples  of  these 
that  are  shown  in  his  speeches  are  usually  specimens  of 
that  forcible-feeble  straining  to  be  severe  which  marks 
the  man  of  violent  temper  and  feeble  intellect.  As  repre 
sented,  he  has  neither  the  feeling,  the  instincts,  nor  the 
manners  of  a  gentleman.  He  so  much  dislikes  untruth 
that  he  insinuates  to  a  guest,  very  broadly  as  well  as 
very  unjustly,  that  he  is  lying.  In«short,  he  is  one  of 
those  rude  and  vulgar  men  who  fancy  that  they  are 
frank  simply  because  they  are  brutal.  No  civilized  so 
ciety  would  long  tolerate  the  presence,  if  even  the  ex 
istence,  of  such  an  animal  as  he  is  here  represented  to  be. 
Even  he,  however,  shines  by  comparison  with  the  he 
roine.  Of  her  we  hear  no  end  of  praise.  Her  delicacy, 
her  plastic  simplicity,  the  simple  elegance  of  her  attire, 
her  indescribable  air  of  polish,  her  surpassing  beauty 
and  modesty  of  mien,  are  referred  to  again  and  again. 
She  is  simple,  she  is  feminine,  she  is  dignified.  To  men 
her  smiles  are  faint  and  distant.  Across  her  counte 
nance  no  unworthy  thought  has  ever  left  a  trace.  Once 
and  once  only  did  she  fail  to  keep  up  to  the  high  level 


154  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

of  deportment  which  she  ordinarily  maintained.  On  one 
occasion  "  her  little  foot  moved  "  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  «  she  had  been  carefully  taught,  too,  that  a  lady 
like  manner  required  that  even  this  beautiful  portion  of 
the  female  frame  should  be  quiet  and  unobtrusive." 
Something,  however,  must  always  be  pardoned  to  hu 
man  nature ;  and  Cooper  doubtless  felt  that  it  would 
not  do  to  make  his  heroine  absolutely  free  from  frailty. 
As  a  sort  of  foil  to  her  was  introduced  her  cousin  Grace 
Van  Cortlandt.  She,  to  be  sure,  had  not  had  the  ad 
vantage  of  foreign  travel ;  but  there  was  a  redeeming 
feature  in  her  case.  She  belonged  to  an  old  family. 
She  was  saved  in  consequence  from  being  entirely  sub 
merged  in  that  sweltering,  foaming  tide  of  mediocrity, 
which  called  itself  New  York  society.  Belonging  to  an 
old  family  did  not,  however,  preserve  her  from  being 
provincial.  She  is  taken  along  with  the  rest  to  Tem- 
pleton.  On  her  way  thither  she  is  steadily  snubbed  by 
the  masculine  element  of  the  party,  and  henpecked  by 
the  feminine.  The  reader  comes  in  time  to  have  the 
sincerest  pity  for  this  unfortunate  girl,  who  is  made  to 
pay  very  dearly  for  the  misfortune  of  being  akin  to  a 
family  whose  members  had  become  too  superior  to  be 
gracious  and  too  polished  to  be  polite. 

In  the  composition  of  this  work  Cooper  seems  to 
have  lost  all  sense  of  the  ridiculous.  The  personages 
whom  he  wished  to  make  particularly  attractive  are  uni 
formly  disagreeable.  A  French  governess  appears  in 
the  story,  who  is  simply  insufferable.  He  brings  in  an 
American  woman,  Mrs.  Bloomfield,  as  a  representative, 
according  to  him,  of  that  class  which  equals,  if  it  does  not 
surpass,  in  the  brilliancy  of  its  conversation  the  best  to 
be  found  in  European  salons.  She  is  introduced  dis- 


CRITICISM  OF  AMERICA  AND  AMERICANS.    155 

coursing  on  the  civilization  of  the  country  in  a  way  that 
would  speedily  empty  any  of  the  parlors  of  her  native 
land.  Indeed,  throughout  the  work  the  characters  con 
verse  as  no  rational  beings  ever  conversed  under  any  sort 
of-  provocation.  But  it  is  in  the  speeches  of  the  heroine 
that  the  language  reaches  its  highest  development.  She 
can  emphatically  be  said  to  talk  like  a  book.  She  does 
not  guess,  she  hazards  conjectures.  She  playfully  ad 
dresses  her  father  as  "  thoughtless,  precipitate  parent." 
When  she  is  asked  what  she  thinks  of  the  country  now 
that  an  attempt  was  made  to  take  possession  of  the 
Point,  she  describes  her  character,  as  drawn  in  this 
novel,  as  no  words  of  another  can.  "  Miss  Effingham," 
she  says,  "  has  been  grieved,  disappointed,  nay,  shocked, 
but  she  will  not  despair  of  the  republic."  Indeed  the 
only  person  in  the  work  who  has  any  near  kinship  to 
humanity  is  one  of  the  inferior  characters,  named  Aris- 
tobulus  Bragg.  He  is  the  more  attractive  because  he 
says  bright  things  unconsciously  ;  while  the  heavy  char 
acters  say  heavy  things  under  the  impression  that  they 
are  light. 

This  book  had  a  profound  influence  upon  Cooper's 
fortunes.  From  beginning  to  end  it  was  a  blunder.  It 
cannot  receive  even  the  negative  praise  of  being  a  work 
in  which  the  best  of  intentions  was  marred  by  the  worst 
of  taste.  Its  spirit  was  a  bad  spirit  throughout.  It  was 
dreadful  to  think  some  of  the  things  found  in  it ;  but  it 
was  more  dreadful  to  say  them.  There  was  a  great 
deal  of  truth  in  its  pages,  but  if  the  views  expressed  in 
it  had  been  actually  inspired,  the  attitude  and  tone  the 
author  assumed  would  have  prevented  his  making  a 
convert.  To  some  extent  this  had  been  true  of  ' '  Home 
ward  Bound."  Greeuough  expostulated  with  Cooper, 


156  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

after  reading  that  noveL  "I  think,"  he  wrote  from 
Florence,  "  you  lose  hold  on  the  American  public  by 
rubbing  down  their  shins  with  brickbats  as  you  do." 
The  most  surprising  thing  connected  with  "  Home  as 
Found,"  however,  is  Cooper's  unconsciousness,  not  of 
the  probability,  but  of  the  possibility,  that  he  would  be 
charged  with  drawing  himself  in  the  character  of  Ed 
ward  Effingham,  and  to  some  extent  in  that  of  John 
Effingham.  The  sentiments  advanced  were  his  senti- 

O 

ments,  the  acts  described  were  in  many  cases  his  acts. 
The  absence  in  a  foreign  laud,  the  return  to  America, 
the  scene  laid  at  Templeton,  with  a  direct  reference  to 
"  The  Pioneers,"  the  account  of  the  controversy  about 
the  Three  Mile  Point,  —  all  these  fixed  definitely  the 
man  and  the  place.  Variations  in  matters  of  detail 
would  not  disturb  the  truth  of  the  general  resemblance. 
Still  Cooper  not  only  did  not  intend  to  represent  him 
self,  he  was  unaware  that  he  had  done  so.  Nearly 
three  years  after  in  the  columns  of  a  weekly  newspaper 
he  stoutly  defended  himself  against  the  imputation.  It 
was  useless.  From  this  time  forward  the  name  of  Ef 
fingham  was  often  derisively  applied  to  him  in  the  con 
troversies  in  which  he  was  engaged. 

It  was  not  merely  the  intemperate  spirit  exhibited, 
which  destroyed  the  effect  of  the  shrewd  and  just  com 
ments  often  appearing  in  "  Home  as  Found."  This  was 
full  as  much  impaired  by  the  display  of  personal  weak 
nesses.  Cooper's  foible  about  descent  he  could  not  help 
exposing.  No  thoughtful  man  denies  the  desirability 
of  honorable  lineage,  or  undervalues  the  possession  of 
it;  but  not  for  the  reasons  for  which  the  novelist  re 
garded  it  and  celebrated  it.  There  was  much  in  this 
single  story  to  justify  Lowell's  sarcasm,  uttered  ten 


CRITICISM  OF  AMERICA  AND  AMERICANS.   157 

years  later,  that  Cooper  had  written  six  volumes  to 
prove  that  he  was  as  good  as  a  lord.  He  traces  his 
families  up  to  remote  periods  in  the  past.  He  thereby 
shows  their  superiority  to  the  newly-created  family  of 
the  English  baronet  who  is  brought  into  the  tale.  It 
was  to  correct  the  erroneous  impression,  prevalent  in 
Europe,  that  there  was  no  stability,  no  permanent  re 
spectability  in  the  society  of  this  country,  that  he  en 
larged  upon  the  date  to  which  ancestry  could  be  traced. 
The  difficulty  was  to  persuade  anybody  that  the  men 
who  took  the  pains  to  look  up  their  forefathers  had 
any  superiority  to  those  who  shared  in  the  general  in 
difference  as  to  who  their  forefathers  were.  He  went 
farther  than  this  in  some  instances,  and  expressly  im 
plied  that  blood  and  birth  were  necessary  to  gentility. 
This  was  provincialism  pushed  to  an  extreme.  What 
ever  we  may  think  of  its  actual  value,  English  aristoc 
racy  resembles  in  this  gold  and  silver,  that  it  has  an 
accepted  value  independent  of  the  character  of  its  rep 
resentatives.  It  is,  therefore,  current  throughout  the 
civilized  world;  whereas  American  aristocracy  is  like 
local  paper  money :  worth  nothing  except  in  its  own 
country,  and  even  there  receiving  little  recognition  or 
circulation  outside  of  the  immediate  neighborhood  in 
which  it  is  found.  Still,  the  subject  of  blood  and  birth 
is  a  solemn  one  to  those  who  believe  in  it,  and  they  are 
absolutely  incapable  of  comprehending  the  feelings  of  a 
world  of  scoffers,  or,  if  they  do,  impute  them  to  imper 
fect  mental  or  spiritual  development.  On  this  point 
Cooper  had  the  misfortune  to  say  what  some  think  but 
dare  not  express. 

The  wrath  aroused,  especially  in  New  York  city,  by 
this  particular  novel,  had  about  it  something  both  fear- 


158  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

ful  and  comic.  In  one  respect  Cooper  had  the  advan 
tage,  and  his  critics  all  felt  it.  His  work  was  certain  to 
be  translated  into  all  the  principal  languages  of  modern 
Europe.  The  picture  he  drew  of  New  York  society 
would  be  the  one  that  foreigners  would  naturally  re 
ceive  as  genuine.  By  them  it  would  be  looked  upon 
as  the  work  of  a  man  familiar  with  what  he  was  de 
scribing,  the  work  of  a  man,  moreover,  who  had  been 
well  known  in  European  circles  for  his  intense  Amer 
icanism.  It  was  vain  to  protest  that  it  was  a  caricature. 
The  protest  would  not  be  heeded  even  if  it  were  heard. 
His  enemies  might  rage;  but  they  were  powerless  to 
influence  foreign  opinion,  and  they  felt  themselves  so. 
Rage  they  certainly  did ;  and  if  the  assault  made  upon 
him  had  been  as  effective  as  it  was  violent,  little  would 
have  been  left  of  his  reputation.  Even  as  late  as  1842, 
during  the  progress  of  the  libel  suits,  some  one  took  the 
pains  to  produce  a  novel  in  two  volumes  called  "'The 
Effinghams,  or  Home  as  I  Found  It,'  by  the  Author  of 
the  'Victims  of  Chancery.'"  The  whole  aim  of  this 
tale  was  to  satirise  Cooper.  Mere  malignity,  however, 
has  little  vitality ;  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  work 
was  widely  praised  by  the  journals  for  its  "  sound 
American  feeling,"  and  for  its  hits  at  "the  conceited, 
disappointed,  and  Europeanized  writer  of  'Home  as 
Found,' "  it  passed  so  speedily  to  the  paper-makers  that 
antiquarian  research  would  now  be  tasked  to  find  a  copy. 
About  the  contemporary  newspaper  notices  there  was  a 
certain  tiger-like  ferocity  which  almost  justified  much 
that  Cooper  said  in  denunciation  of  the  American  press. 
A  specimen,  though  a  somewhat  extreme  one,  of  a  good 
deal  of  the  sort  of  criticism  to  which  the  novelist  was 
subjected,  can  be  found  in  the  "  New  Yorker  "  for  the 


CRITICISM  OF  AMERICA  AND  AMERICANS.    159 

1st  of  December,  1838.  This  journal  was  edited  by 
Horace  Greeley,  but  the  article  in  question  came  prob 
ably  from  the  pen  of  Park  Benjamin.  It  defended 
Cooper  from  the  charge  of  vilifying  his  country  in 
order  to  make  his  works  salable  in  England,  but  it  de 
fended  him  in  this  way.  No  motive  of  that  kind  was 
necessary  to  be  supposed.  He  had  an  inborn  disposition 
to  pour  out  his  bile  and  vent  his  .  spleen.  "  He  is  as 
proud  of  blackguarding,"  the  article  continued,  "  as  a 
fishwoman  of  Billingsgate.  It  is  as  natural  to  him  as 
snarling  to  a  tom-cat,  or  growling  to  a  bull-dog.  .  .  .  He 
is  the  common  mark  of  scorn  and  contempt  of  every 
well-informed  American.  The  superlative  dolt!"  In 
this  refined  and  chastened  style  did  the  defenders  of 
American  cultivation  preserve  its  reputation  from  its 
traducer. 

Criticism  of  the  kind  just  quoted,  hurts  only  the  man 
who  utters  it  and  the  community  which  tolerates  it.  It 
injured  the  reputation  of  the  country  far  more  than  the 
work  could  that  it  criticised.  "  Home  as  Found,"  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  was  prevented  from  doing  any  harm, 
partly  by  its  excessive  exaggeration  but  more  by  its  ex 
cessive  poorness.  As  a  story  it  stood  in  marked  con 
trast  to  its  immediate  predecessor.  It  was  as  difficult 
to  accompany  Cooper  on  land  as  it  had  been  to  abandon 
him  when  on  the  water.  The  tediousness  of  the  tale  is 
indeed  something  appalling  to  the  most  hardened  novel- 
reader.  The  only  interest  it  can  possibly  have  at  this 
day  is  from  the  opportunity  it  affords  of  studying  one 
phase  of  the  author's  character,  and  of  accounting  for 
much  of  the  bitter  hostility  with  which  he  was  assailed. 

While  he  was  lecturing  his  countrymen  on  manners, 
his  own  were  spoken  of  in  turn  in  a  way  that  gave  espe- 


160  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

cial  delight  to  the  enemies  he  had  made  by  his  criti 
cisms.  In  1837  Lockhart's  "  Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott " 
was  appearing.  In  the  diary  of  that  novelist  were  some 
references  to  the  American  author.  "  This  man,"  he 
said,  describing  his  first  interview,  "who  has  shown  so 
much  genius,  has  a  good  deal  of  the  manners,  or  want 
of  manners,  peculiar  to  his  countrymen."  Cooper's  per 
sonal  acquaintance  with  Scott  had  begun  in  1826,  just 
after  the  latter  had  set  about  his  gigantic  effort  to  pay 
off  the  load  of  debt  in  which  he  had  involved  himself. 
The  American  novelist  had  made  then  an  attempt  to 
secure  for  the  man  he  regarded  as  his  master  some 
adequate  return  from  the  vast  sale  of  his  works  in  the 
United  States.  In  this  he  had  been  foiled.  In  the 
"  Knickerbocker  Magazine  "  for  April,  1838,  he  gave  an 
account  of  these  fruitless  negotiations.  In  a  later  num 
ber  of  the  same  year  he  reviewed  Lockhart's  biography. 
This  work  is  well  known  as  one  of  the  most  entertaining 
in  our  literature.  But  on  its  appearance  it  gave  a  pain 
ful  shock  to  the  admirers  of  the  great  author  by  the 
revelations  it  made  of  practices  which  savored  more  of 
the  proverbial  canniness  of  the  Scotchman  than  of  the 
lofty  spirit  of  the  man  of  honor.  Equally  surprising 
was  the  unconsciousness  of  the  biographer,  that  there  was 
anything  discreditable  in  what  he  disclosed.  Cooper 
criticised  Scott's  conduct  in  certain  matters  with  a  good 
deal  of  severity.  In  regard  to  some  points  he  took 
extreme,  and  what  might  fairly  be  deemed  Quixotic 
ground.  Yet  the  general  justice  of  his  article  will  hardly 
be  denied  now  by  any  one  who  is  fully  cognizant  of  the 
facts.  Nor,  indeed,  was  it  then.  "I  have  just  read," 
wrote  Charles  Sumner  from  London  to  Hillard,  in  Jan 
uary,  1839,  "an  article  on  Lockhart's  'Scott/  written 


CRITICISM  OF  AMERICA  AND  AMERICANS.     161 

by  Cooper  in  the  ''  Knickerbocker,"  which  was  lent  me 
by  Barry  Cornwall.  I  think  it  capital.  I  see  none  of 
Cooper's  faults ;  and  I  think  a  proper  castigation  is  ap 
plied  to  the  vulgar  minds  of  Scott  and  Lockhart.  In 
deed,  the  nearer  I  approach  the  circle  of  these  men  the 
less  disposed  do  I  find  myself  to  like  them."  Sumner 
subsequently  wrote,  that  Procter  fully  concurred  in  the 
conclusions  advanced  in  the  review.  But  these  were  not 
the  prevalent  opinions,  in  this  country  at  least.  Great 
was  the  outcry  against  Cooper  for  writing  this  article  . 
great  the  outcry  against  the  "'Knickerbocker"  for  print 
ing  it.  The  latter  was  severely  censured  for  its  will 
ingness  to  prostitute  its  columns  to  the  service  of  the 
former  in  his  slanderous  "  attempts  to  vilify  the  object 
of  his  impotent  and  contemptible  hatred."  Americans 
who  were  averse  to  Scott's  being  honestly  paid  proved 
particularly  solicitous  that  he  should  not  be  honestly 
criticised.  They  showed  themselves  as  little  scrupulous 
in  defending  him  after  he  was  dead  as  they  had  been  in 
plundering  him  while  he  was  living. 

Cooper  had  previously  aroused  the  resentment  of 
many  because  he  had  failed  to  express  gratification  or 
delight  at  being  termed  "  the  American  Scott."  He 
had  then  been  assured  again  and  again  that  there  was 
no  danger  of  the  title  being  applied  to  him  in  future ; 
that  in  ten  years  their  names  would  never  be  coupled 
together,  and  that  he  himself  would  be  totally  forgotten. 
It  could  hardly  have  been  deemed  a  compliment  in  a 
land  where  scarcely  a  petty  district  can  exist  peacefully 
and  creditably,  with  a  hill  three  thousand  feet  in  height, 
which  is  not  in  time  rendered  disreputable  by  being  sad 
dled  with  the  pretentious  name  of  "  The  American 
Switzerland."  Personal  malice  alone,  however,  could 
11 


162  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE    COOPER. 

impute  his  disclaimer  either  to  malice  or  to  envy.  His 
own  estimate  of  his  relations  to  the  British  novelist,  he 
had  given  many  times  ;  and  indirectly  at  that  very  time 
in  his  account  in  the  first  "  Knickerbocker  "  article,  of  his 
interview  with  Sir  Walter  Scott.  The  latter  had  been 
so  obliging,  he  observed,  as  to  make  him  a  number  of 
flattering  speeches,  which  he,  however,  did  not  repay  in 
kind.  His  reserve  he  thought  Scott  did  not  altogether 
like.  In  this  he  was  probably  mistaken,  but  the  reason 
he  gave  for  his  own  conduct  savored  little  of  feelings  of 
envy  or  rivalry.  "  As  Johnson,"  he  wrote,  "  said  of  his 
interview  with  George  the  Third,  it  was  not  for  me  to 
bandy  compliments  with  my  sovereign."  No  attention 
was  paid  to  these  and  similar  utterances  of  a  man  whom 
his  bitterest  enemies  never  once  dared  to  charge  with 
saying  a  word  he  did  not  mean. 

Few  at  this  day  will  be  disposed  to  deny  the  justice 
of  a  good  deal  of  the  criticism  that  Cooper  passed  upon 
his  country  and  his  countrymen.  Even  now,  though 
many  of  his  strictures  are  directed  against  things  that 
no  longer  exist,  there  is  still  much  in  his  writings  that 
can  be  read  with  profit.  The  essential  justice  of  what 
he  said  is  not  impaired  by  the  fact  that  he  was  usually 
indiscreet  and  intemperate  in  the  saying  of  it.  Nor 
were  his  motives  of  a  low  kind.  He  loved  his  country, 
and  nothing  lay  dearer  to  his  heart  than  to  have  her 
what  she  ought  to  be.  The  people  were  the  source  of 
power ;  and  it  was  his  cardinal  principle  that  power 
ought  always  to  be  censured  rather  than  flattered.  It 
needed  to  be  told  the  truth,  however  unwelcome  ;  and 
in  his  eyes,  that  man  was  no  true  patriot  who  was  not 
willing  to  encounter  unpopularity,  if  it  came  in  the  line 
of  duty.  At  the  same  time,  while  doing  full  justice  to 


•  CRITICISM  OF  AMERICA  AND  AMERICANS.     163 

the  purity  of  his  motives,  we  cannot  shut  our  eyes  to 
the  defects  of  his  method.  His  abilities,  his  reputation, 
his  acquaintance  with  foreign  lands,  gave  him  inestima 
ble  advantages  for  influencing  his  countrymen,  and  of 
educating  them  in  matters  where  they  stood  sadly  in 
need  of  it.  But  the  spirit  in  which  he  went  to  work 
deprived  him  of  the  legitimate  influence  he  should  have 
exerted.  Excitement,  and  passion,  and  indignation  led 
him  often  to  say  the  wrong  thing.  More  often  they 
caused  him  to  say  the  right  thing  in  the  wrong  way. 
Nor  did  he  escape  the  special  temptation  which  speedily 
besets  him  who  starts  out  to  tell  his  fellow-men  unpleas 
ant  truths.  Duty  of  this  kind  soon  begins  to  have  a 
peculiar  fascination  of  its  own.  The  careful  reader  can 
not  fail  to  see  that  in  process  of  time  the  more  disagree 
able  was  the  truth  the  more  delightful  it  became  to 
Cooper  to  tell  it.  Most  unreasonable  it  certainly  was 
to  expect  that  constant  fault-finding  would  be  looked 
upon  as  a  proof  of  special  attachment.  The  means, 
moreover,  were  not  always  adapted  to  the  end.  Men 
may  possibly  be  lectured  to  some  extent  into  the  acqui 
sition  of  the  virtues,  but  they  never  can  be  bullied  into 
the  graces. 

Besides  all  this,  in  a  great  deal  of  Cooper's  criticism 
there  were  fundamental  defects.  He  constantly  con 
founded  the  unimportant  and  the  temporary  with  the 
important  and  the  permanent.  Many  of  his  most  vio 
lent  strictures  are  devoted  to  points  of  little  consequence, 
and  the  feeling  expressed  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
significance  of  the  matter  involved.  Nothing,  for  in 
stance,  seemed  to  irritate  him  more  than  the  preference 
given  by  many  of  his  countrymen  to  the  scenery  of 
America  over  that  of  Europe.  Especially  was  he  indig- 


164  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

nant  with  the  "  besotted  stupidity  "  that  could  compare 
the  bay  of  New  York  with  that  of  Naples.  He  re 
turned  to  this  topic  in  book  after  book.  Yet  of  all  the 
harmless  exhibitions  of  mistaken  judgment,  that  which 
prefers  the  scenery  of  one's  own  land  is  what  a  wise 
man  would  be  least  disposed  to  find  fault  with  ;  cer 
tainly  what  he  would  think  least  calculated  to  inspire 
the  wrath  of  a  Juvenal.  Cosmopolitanism  is  well 
enough  in  its  way.  But  that  ability  to  see  things  ex 
actly  as  they  are,  which  enables  a  man  to  criticise  his 
mother  with  the  same  impartiality  with  which  he  does 
any  other  woman,  can  hardly  be  thought  to  mark  a  high 
development  of  his  loftier  feelings,  however  creditable 
it  may  be  to  the  judicial  tone  of  his  mind.  Undue  pref 
erence  of  the  scenery  of  one's  own  country  is  an  amiable 
weakness  at  which  the  philosopher  may  smile,  but  the 
patriot  can  afford  to  rejoice. 

There  was,  moreover,  a  certain  vagueness  about  much 
of  Cooper's  criticism  that  deprived  it  of  effect.  No 
more  striking  illustration  of  this  could  be  found  than 
his  constant  charge  of  provincialism  made  against  this 
country.  He  repeated  it  in  season  and  out  of  season. 
For  several  years  he  hardly  published  a  work  which  did 
not  contain  a  number  of  references  to  it  or  assertions  of 
its  existence.  Provincial  enough  we  certainly  were 
then,  if  looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  present 
time.  We  in  turn  may  seem  so  to  our  descendants. 
This  possibility  shows  at  once  the  somewhat  unreal  nat 
ure  of  the  accusation.  Provincialism,  like  vulgarity,  is 
a  term  that  defies  exact  explanation.  It  is  the  indefinite 
and,  therefore,  unanswerable  charge  that  men  constantly 
bring  against  those  whose  standard  of  living  and  think 
ing  is  different  from  their  own.  It  depends  upon  the 


CRITICISM  OF  AMERICA  AND  AMERICANS.     165 

point  of  view  of  the  speaker  full  as  much  as  upon  the 
conduct  and  opinions  of  those  spoken  of.  It  changes  as 
manners  change.  Nations  not  only  impute  it  to  one 
another,  but  even  to  themselves  at  different  periods  of 
their  history.  Made  by  itself,  therefore,  it  means  noth 
ing.  Without  a  specific  description  of  what  in  particu 
lar  is  meant  by  provincialism,  the  charge  cannot  and 
ought  not  to  have  any  weight  with  those  against  whom 
it  is  directed. 

Certain  incidental  facts  mentioned  in  these  observa 
tions  bring  also  to  light  another  marked  defect  of 
Cooper's  course.  This  was  not  in  his  views  but  in  his 
method  of  enforcing  them.  He  could  not  refrain  from 
the  constant  repetition  of  the  same  censures.  He  had 
never  learned  literary  self-restraint ;  that  special  criti 
cisms,  in  order  to  have  their  full  weight,  must  not  be 
forced  too  often  upon  the  attention,  and  especially  at  un 
seasonable  times.  The  mind  revolts  at  having  the  same 
exhibition  of  personal  feeling  thrust  upon  it  in  the  most 
uncalled-for  manner  and  in  the  most  unexpected  places. 
Even  when  originally  disposed  to  agree  with  the  view 
expressed,  it  will,  out  of  a  pure  spirit  of  contradiction, 
take  the  side  opposed  to  that  which  is  enforced  with  ex 
asperating  frequency.  The  fullest  sympathizer  is  sure 
to  get  tired  of  this  everlasting  slaying  of  the  slain.  A 
similar  effect  is,  indeed,  likely  to  be  produced  upon  the 
victim  of  the  criticism.  Instead  of  being  stirred  to  re 
flection,  repentance,  or  even  indignation,  he  simply  be 
comes  bored.  After  a  man  has  been  told  a  hundred  times 
that  he  is  provincial,  the  remark  ceases  to  be  exciting. 
The  things,  therefore,  that  Cooper  said  incidentally  are 
even  now  the  only  ones  that  make  any  deep  impression 
upon  the  mind.  Like  all  men,  sensitive  to  the  national 


166  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

honor,  he  felt  keenly  the  refusal  of  Congress  to  pass  a 
copyright  law.  It  led  him  to  say  twice,  but  both  times 
very  quietly,  that  in  spite  of  loud  profession  there  was 
little  genuine  sympathy  in  this  country  with  art,  or 
scholarship,  or  letters.  The  absence  of  all  heat  and  ex 
citement  gives  to  the  remark  a  weight  that  never  be 
longs  to  his  violent  utterances  and  fierce  denunciations. 
We  may  hope  that  we  have  gained  since  his  time  ;  but 
even  at  this  day  we  have  little  to  boast  of,  if  the  aver 
age  cultivation  of  the  people,  as  well  as  its  average  mo 
rality,  finds  expression  in  the  laws.  The  record  in  these 
matters  of- the  highest  legislative  body  in  the  land  is 
still  the  most  discreditable  of  that  of  any  nation  in 
Christendom.  To  gratify  the  greed  of  a  few  traders,  it 
has  never  refused  to  lay  heavy  burdens  upon  scholar 
ship  and  letters.  It  has  steadily  imposed  duties  on  the 
introduction  of  everything  that  could  facilitate  the  ac 
quisition  of  learning,  and  further  the  development  of 
art.  It  has  persistently  stabbed  literature  under  the 
pretence  of  encouraging  intelligence.  It  has  never  once 
been  guilty  of  the  weakness  of  yielding  for  a  moment  to 
the  virtuous  impulse  that  would  even  contemplate  the 
enactment  of  a  copyright  law.  If  it  ever  does  pass  one, 
it  will  do  so,  not  because  foreign  authors  have  rights, 
but  because  native  publishers  have  quarrels.  Thus  con 
sistent  in  its  unwillingness  to  do  an  honest  thing  from 
an  honest  motive,  it  will  even  then  grant  to  selfishness 
what  has  been  invariably  denied  to  justice. 

There  were  other  than  faults  of  view  or  faults  of 
statement  that  mark  Cooper's  writings  at  this  time. 
The  two  novels  published  during  the  year  1838  show  a 
radical  change  in  the  attitude  he  assumed  to  his  art. 
What  had  been  indicated  in  the  stories  whose  scenes 


CRITICISM  OF  AMERICA  AND  AMERICANS.    167 

were  laid  in  Europe,  was  now  carried  out  completely. 
He  may  have  been  unconscious  of  the  difference  of  his 
point  of  view,  but  none  the  less  did  it  exist.  The  novel 
was  no  longer  something  in  which  he  could  embody  his 
conceptions  of  beauty  fairer,  or  truth  higher  than  could 
actually  be  found  in  nature.  It  no  longer  served  him  as 
a  refuge  from  the  din  of  a  clamorous,  or  the  hostility  of 
a  censorious  world.  It  became  a  sort  of  fortress,  from 
the  secure  position  of  which  he  was  enabled  to  deal  out 
annoyance  and  defiance  to  his  foes.  He  had  not  now  so 
much  a  story  to  tell  as  a  sermon  to  preach ;  and  with 
him,  as  with  many  others,  to  preach  meant  to  denounce. 
His  spirit  for  a  time  became  captive  to.  the  prejudices 
and  the  heated  feelings  which  had  been  aroused  by  the 
sense  of  the  injustice  with  which  he  had  been  treated. 
Though  he  at  intervals  worked  himself  out  of  this  state 
of  mind,  upon  much  of  his  later  work  rested  the  shadow 
of  the  prison-house  which  he,  for  a  season,  had  made 
his  abiding-place.  The  result  was  that  a  good  deal  of 
what  he  afterwards  wrote  was  marred  by  the  obtrusion 
of  personal  likes  and  dislikes,  and  the  taint  of  controver 
sial  discussion.  These  things  rarely  concerned  the  story 
in  which  they  appeared,  and  they  inspired  hostility  to 
the  writer.  Cooper,  indeed,  never  learned  to  appreci 
ate  the  fact  that  a  reader  has  rights  which  an  author  is 
bound  to  respect.  By  dragging  in  irrelevant  discussions, 
moreover,  he  was  taking  the  surest  way  to  lose  the  au 
dience  he  most  sought  to  influence.  A  little  reflection 
would  have  taught  him  that  there  was  little  use  in  a 
prophet's  crying  in  the  wilderness,  unless  he  can  suc 
ceed  in  gathering  the  people  together. 

While,  therefore,  there  can  be  no  justification  for  the 
ferocity  with  which  Cooper  was  assailed,  there  was  some 


168  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE   COOPER. 

palliation.  His  course  from  his  return  to  the  country 
had  been  wanting  in  prudence,  and  at  times  in  common 
sense.  He  had  plunged  at  once  as  a. combatant  into  one 
of  the  bitterest  political  controversies  that  ever  agitated 
the  republic.  Hard  blows  were  given  and  taken.  He 
could  scarcely  expect  that,  in  the  heat  of  the  strife,  re 
gard  would  in  all  cases  be  paid  to  the  proprieties  and 
even  the  decencies  of  private  life.  There  was  much  in 
his  later  productions,  moreover,  to  alienate  many  who 
were  honestly  disposed  to  admire  him  as  a  writer.  Pol 
itics  we  could  get  at  all  times  and  from  everybody.  If, 
again,  we  were  hopelessly  provincial,  if  we  were  irre- 
claimably  given  over  to  vulgarity,  we  could  find  out  all 
about  it  from  the  latest  English  traveler,  or  the  review 
of  his  work  that  had  appeared  in  the  latest  English 
periodicals.  But  by  Cooper  the  life  of  the  wilderness 
and  of  the  sea  had  been  told  as  by  no  other  writer.  Over 
the  fields  and  forests  and  streams  of  his  native  land  he 
had  thrown  the  glamour  of  romantic  association  and 
lofty  deeds.  There  was  something  unpleasant  in  wit 
nessing  a  man  who  could  do  this  turning  his  attention 
to  the  discussion  of  points  of  etiquette  and  manners.  Be 
side  the  waste  of  power,  which  is  something  always  dis 
agreeable  to  contemplate,  the  subject  itself  could  hardly 
be  called  an  attractive  one.  It  was  a  sandy  desert  to 
travel  over  at  best.  But  even  those  who  thought  it  a 
thing  worth  while  to  do  once,  could  hardly  help  feeling 
surprise  at  the  spirit  which  could  induce  a  man  to  go 
over  it  again  and  again,  enlarge  upon  its  discomforts,  its 
perpetual  sameness  and  barrenness,  and  point  out  its 
incapacity  of  being  made  much  better.  There  were  even 
worse  things  than  this.  It  could  scarcely  fail  to  inspire 
a  sentiment  almost  like  disgust  to  have  the  creator  of 


CRITICISM  OF  AMERICA  AXD  AMERICANS.     169 

Leather-Stocking  argue  with  heat  the  question  whether 
it  is  right  for  a  lady  to  come  into  a  drawing-room  at  a 
party  without  leaning  upon  the  arm  of  a  gentleman  ;  or 
discourse  solemnly  upon  the  proper  way  of  eating  eggs, 
and  announce  oracularly  that  all  who  were  acquainted 
with  polite  society  would  agree  in  denouncing  the  wine 
glass  or  egg-glass  as  a  vulgar  substitute  for  the  egg-cup. 
Questions  like  these  are  usually  left  to  those  who  have 
the  taste  to  delight  iu  them  and  the  mental  elevation  to 
grasp  the  difficulties  involved  in  them.  They  were  the 
more  disagreeable  when  met  with  in  Cooper,  because  in 
addition  to  the  pettiness  of  the  subject,  there  was  au 
apparent  unconsciousness  on  his  part  that  the  limits  of 
his  own  preferences  and  conclusions  were  not  necessarily 
those  of  the  human  mind. 

Cooper  indeed  exemplified  in  his  literary  career  a 
story  he  was  in  the  habit  of  telling  of  one  of  his  early 
adventures.  While  in  the  navy  he  was  traveling  in  the 
wilderness  bordering  upon  the  Ontario.  The  party  to 
which  he  belonged  came  upon  an  inn  where  they  were 
not  expected.  The  landlord  was  totally  unprepared,  and 
met  them  with  a  sorrowful  countenance.  There  was,  he 
assured  them,  absolutely  nothing  in  his  house  that  was 
fit  to  eat.  When  asked  what  he  had  that  was  not  fit  to 
eat,  he  could  only  say  in  reply  that  he  could  furnish 
them  with  venison,  pheasant,  wild  duck,  and  some  fresh 
fish.  To  the  astonished  question  of  what  better  he  sup 
posed  they  could  wish,  the  landlord  meekly  replied,  that 
he  thought  they  might  have  wanted  some  salt  pork.  The 
story  was  truer  of  Cooper  himself  than  of  his  innkeeper. 
Nature  he  could  depict,  and  the  wild  life  led  in  it,  so 
that  all  men  stood  ready  and  eager  to  gaze  on  the  pict 
ures  he  drew.  He  chose  too  of teii  to  iuflict  upon  them, 


170  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

instead  of  it,  the  most  commonplace  of  moralizing,  the 
stalest  disquisitions  upon  manners  and  customs,  and  the 
driest  discussions  of  politics  and  theology. 

But  the  moral  injury  which  Cooper  received  from 
these  controversial  discussions  and  their  results  was  far 
greater  than  the  intellectual.  They  swung  him  off  the 
line  of  healthful  activity.  They  perverted  his  judgment. 
He  looked  upon  the  social  and  political  movements  that 
were  going  on  about  him  with  the  eye  of  an  irritated 
and  wronged  man.  Years  did  not  bring  to  him  the 
philosophic  mind,  but  the  spirit  of  the  opinionated  par 
tisan  and  the  heated  denouncer.  He  fixed  his  attention 
so  completely  on  the  tendencies  to  ill  that  manifested 
themselves  in  the  social  state,  that  he  often  became  blind 
to  the  counterbalancing  tendencies  to  good.  Hence  his 
later  judgments  were  frequently  one-sided  and  partial. 
He  too  often  took  up  the  role  of  prophesying  disasters 
that  never  came  to  pass.  Moreover,  this  habit  of  look 
ing  at  one  side  not  only  narrowed  his  mental  vision,  but 
turned  it  in  the  direction  of  petty  objects.  No  reader 
of  his  later  novels  can  fail  to  see  how  often  he  excites 
himself  over  matters  of  no  serious  moment;  or  which, 
whether  serious  or  slight,  are  utterly  out  of  place  where 
they  are.  By  many  of  these  exhibitions  the  indifferent 
will  be  amused,  but  the  admirers  of  the  man  will  feel 
pained  if  not  outraged. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

1837-1842. 

BY  the  end  of  1837  Cooper  had  pretty  sedulously 
improved  every  opportunity  of  making  himself  unpopu 
lar.  His  criticisms  had  been  distributed  with  admirable 
impartiality.  Few  persons  or  places  could  complain 
that  they  had  been  overlooked.  The  natural  satisfaction 
that  any  one  would  have  felt  in  contemplating  the  pun 
ishment  inflicted  upon  his  friend  or  neighbor,  was  ut 
terly  marred  by  the  consideration  of  the  outrage  done  to 
himself.  There  was  scarcely  a  class  of  Cooper's  fellow- 
citizens  whose  susceptibilities  had  not  been  touched,  or 
whose  wrath  had  not  been  kindled  by  something  he  had 
said  either  in  public  or  in  private,  and  by  his  saying  it 
repeatedly.  The  sons  of  the  Puritans  he  had  exasper 
ated  by  styling  them  the  grand  inquisitors  of  private 
life,  and  by  asserting  that  a  low  sort  of  tyranny  over 
domestic  affairs  was  the  direct  result  of  their  religious 
polity.  He  had  roused  the  resentment  of  the  survivors 
of  the  old  Federalist  party  by  declaring  that  its  design 
during  the  war  of  1812  had  been  disunion,  and  that  in 
secret  many  of  them  still  longed  for  a  restoration  of 
monarchy,  and  sighed  for  ribbons,  stars,  and  garters. 
He  had  not  conciliated  the  party  with  which  he  was 
nominally  allied  by  his  incessant  attacks  upon  the  doc 
trine  of  free-trade.  He  had  made  Boston  shudder  to  its 
remotest  suburbs,  by  stating  again  and  again  in  the 


172  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

strongest  terms  that  it  was  in  the  Middle  States  alone 
that  the  English  language  was  spoken  with  purity. 
The  New  England  capital  he  had  further  described  as 
a  gossiping  country  town  with  a  tone  of  criticism  so 
narrow  and  vulgar  as  scarcely  to  hide  the  parochial  sort 
of  venom  which  engendered  it.  He  had  charged  upon 
New  Yorkers  that  their  lives  were  spent  in  the  constant 
struggle  for  inordinate  and  grasping  gain ;  that  to  talk 
of  dollars  was  to  them  a  source  of  endless  enjoyment; 
and  that  their  society  had  for  its  characteristic  distinc 
tion  the  fussy  pretension  and  swagger  that  usually  mark 
the  presence  of  lucky  speculators  in  stocks.  He  had 
attributed  to  the  whole  trading  class  a  jealous  and  fero 
cious  watchfulness  of  the  pocket,  and  a  readiness  to  sac 
rifice  at  any  time  the  honor  of  the  country  for  the  sake 
of  personal  profit.  To  the  native  merchants  he  had 
denied  the  name  of  real  merchants.  They  were  simply 
factors,  mere  agents,  who  were  ennobled  by  commerce, 
but  who  did  not  themselves  ennoble  it.  The  foreign 
traders  resident  here  fared  no  better.  They  had  never 
read  the  Constitution  of  the  country  they  had  made  their 
home,  and  were  incapable  of  understanding  it  if  they 
should  read  it.  Always  judging  of  American  facts  in 
accordance  with  the  antiquated  notions  in  which  they 
had  been  brought  up,  they  were  largely  responsible 
for  the  erroneous  opinions  entertained  and  blundering 
prophecies  made  in  Europe  in  regard  to  the  condition 
and  future  of  the  United  States.  The  educated  class, 
above  all,  he  had  denounced  for  its  indomitable  selfish 
ness  and  its  hatred  of  the  rights  of  those  socially  infe 
rior.  It  was  entirely  behind  the  fortunes  of  the  country 
and  still  cherished  prejudices  against  democracy  that 
the  very  stupidest  of  European  conservatives  had  begun 


WAR  WITH  THE  PRESS.  173 

to  lay  aside.  The  newspaper  press  he  had  assailed. with 
a  pungency  and  vigor  which  it  in  vain  sought  to  rival. 
He  was  spattered  by  it,  however,  with  almost  every  op 
probrious  term  that  belongs  to  the  vocabulary  of  wrath 
and  abuse.  Invention  was  tasked  to  furnish  discredita 
ble  reasons  for  all  that  he  said  and  did.  That  inex 
haustible  capacity  of  devising  base  motives  for  conduct, 
which  is  an  especial  attribute  of  mean  minds,  had  now 
opportunity  to  put  forth  its  full  powers  in  the  way  of 
insinuation  and  assertion.  It  did  not  go  unimproved. 
A  common  charge  brought  against  him  after  the  pub 
lication  of  the  "  Letter  to  His  Countrymen  "  was  that  it 
had  been  written  for  the  sake  of  gaining  office.  It  was 
even  said  that  Van  Buren  had  a  hand  in  it.  Then  and 
afterward,  the  Whig  newspapers  represented  Cooper  as 
seeking  the  position  of  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  Denial 
availed  him  nothing.  It  would  certainly  have  not  been 
at  all  to  his  discredit  to  have  desired  the  place ;  for  he 
knew  a  great  deal  about  the  navy,  and  its  interests  were 
very  dear  to  his  heart.  For  these  very  reasons  his  ap 
pointment  to  it  would  have  been  in  violation  of  the 
traditional  policy  of  the  government.  It  was  probably 
never  once  contemplated  by  any  administration,  as  it 
was  certainly  never  asked  by  Cooper  himself. 

The  two  extracts  that  have  already  been  given  are 
doubtless  sufficient  to  satisfy  any  curiosity  that  may  ex 
ist  in  regard  to  the  way  in  which  he  was  spoken  of  by 
the  press  of  America.  Yet  coarse  as  was  its  vitupera 
tion,  it  was  surpassed  by  that  of  Great  Britain.  Eng 
lishmen  may  have  felt,  and  have  felt  justly,  that  Cooper 
took  an  unfair  view  of  their  social  life  and  political  in 
stitutions.  National  character  sweeps  through  a  range 
so  vast  that  a  man  will  usually  be  able  to  find  in  it  what 


174  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

he  goes  to  seek.  Even  under  the  most  favorable  con 
ditions  the  tastes  of  a  coterie  or  the  habits  of  a  class  are 
made  the  standard  by  which  to  estimate  the  tastes  and 
habits  of  a  whole  people.  Certain  it  is  that  the  view  of 
any  nation  is  to  be  distrusted  which  is  not  taken  from  a 
station  of  good-will.  But  granting  that  Cooper  was 
unjust  in  his  observations,  there  was  nothing  he  said 
which  afforded  the  least  excuse  for  the  coarse  personal 
ity  with  which  he  was  followed  from  the  time  he  pub 
lished  his  volumes  on  England.  The  remarks  of  the 
ordinary  journals  can  be  dismissed  without  comment. 
But  brutal  vituperation  was  found  in  abundance  in 
periodicals  which  claimed  to  be  the  representatives  of 
the  highest  cultivation  and  refinement.  According  to 
"  Blackwood's  Magazine,"  Cooper  was  a  vulgar  man, 
who  from  having  been  bred  to  the  sea  had  been  enabled 
to  give  some  striking  descriptions  of  sea-affairs,  and  in 
consequence  had  unluckily  imagined  himself  a  universal 
genius.  It  went  on  to  add,  that  on  the  strength  of  the 
trifling  reputation  he  had  acquired  by  stories  descriptive 
of  American  life,  he  had  come  to  Europe,  and  had  since 
been  partly  traveling  on  the  Continent  to  pick  up  mate 
rials  for  novels,  and  partly  residing  in  England,  actively 
employed  in  the  effort  to  introduce  himself  into  society. 
In  this  it  admitted  he  might  have  been  partially  suc 
cessful,  for  the  English  were  a  very  yielding  people  and 
did  not  take  much  trouble  to  resist  attempts  of  this  kind. 
"  Blackwood,"  however,  was  outdone  in  this  rowdy  style 
of  reviewing  by  "  Eraser's  Magazine."  From  that  peri 
odical  we  learn  that  Cooper  was  "  a  passable  scribbler  of 
passable  novels,"  a  "  bilious  braggart,"  a  "  liar,"  a  "  full 
jackass,"  "  a  man  of  consummate  and  inbred  vulgarity," 
"  a  bore  of  the  first  magnitude  in  society,"  who  went 


WAR  WITH  THE  PEESS.  175 

about  fishing  for  introductions.  "  But  this,"  it  con 
cluded,  speaking  of  his  England,  "  was  his  last  kick,  and 
we  shall  not  disturb  his  dying  moments."  Two  years 
later  the  magazine  seemed  to  think  he  had  some  power 
of  kicking  left,  for  it  returned  to  the  charge  in  conse 
quence  of  his  review  of  Lockhart's  "  Life  of  Scott."  In 
this  article  he  was  called  a  "spiteful  miscreant,"  an 
"insect,"  a  "grub,"  a  "reptile."  The  "Quarterly  Re 
view  "  was  as  virulent  and  violent  as  the  magazines,  but 
the  attack  was  more  skillful  as  well  as  longer  and  more 
elaborate.  By  garbling  extracts  it  cleverly  insinuated  a 
good  deal  more  than  it  said,  and  it  so  contrived  to  put 
several  things  that  the  reader  could  hardly  fail  to  draw 
inferences  which  the  writer  must  have  known  to  be  false. 
Even  these  attacks  were  equaled  if  not  surpassed  at  a 
later  period  by  the  "  London  Times."  A  nominal  review 
in  that  journal  of  "  Eve  Effingham,"  as  "  Home  as 
Found  "  was  entitled  in  England,  was  really  devoted  to 
personal  vituperation  of  the  novelist.  It  ended  with 
the  assertion  that  he  was  more  vulgar  than  ever,  and 
was  the  most  "  affected,  offensive,  envious,  and  ill-condi 
tioned  "  of  authors.  Altogether  Cooper  must  have  been 
impressed  with  the  effectiveness  of  the  blow  which  he 
had  struck  by  the  violence  with  which  it  was  resented. 
It  seems  hard  to  believe  that  remarks  such  as  have  been 
quoted  should  have  been  thought  to  establish  anything 
but  the  vulgarity  of  the  men  who  wrote  them.  Yet  they 
apparently  answered  their  purpose.  The  very  latest  no 
tice  of  Cooper's  life  which  has  appeared  in  Great  Britain, 
characterizes  his  work  on  England  as  an  "  outburst  of 
vanity  and  ill-temper."  It  certainly  contained  some  ill- 
judged  remarks  which  have  been  made  the  most  of  by 
his  enemies;  but  this  estimate,  like  many  other  asser- 


176  JAMES  FEN IM ORE  COOPER. 

tions  in  the  same  sketch,  was  not  got  from  reading  the 
work  itself,  but  from  what  British  periodicals  had  said 
about  it. 

Such  was  the  kind  of  criticism  that  the  novelist  now 
mainly  received  in  the  two  great  English-speaking 
countries.  These  flowers  of  invective  do  not  constitute 
an  anthology  which  an  Englishman  or  American  of  to 
day  can  read  with  pleasure,  or  contemplate  with  pride. 
It  was  the  comments  made  by  his  countrymen  that 
naturally  touched  Cooper  most  nearly.  His  nature  was 
of  a  kind  to  feel  keenly,  and  resent  warmly  insinuations 
and  charges  that  impugned  the  purity  of  his  motives. 
Nor  was  his  a  disposition  to  rest  quiet  under  attack  or 
to  assume  merely  the  defensive.  He  retorted  in  let 
ters,  in  works  of  fiction,  and  in  books  of  travel.  Fi 
nally  he  resorted  to  libel  suits.  Never,  indeed,  was  a 
fiercer  fight  carried  on  by  an  individual  against  a  power 
more  mighty  than  Cooper  carried  on  with  the  press.  It 
had  a  thousand  tongues,  he  had  but  one  ;  but  it  often 
seemed  as  if  his  one  had  the  force  of  a  thousand.  The 
epithets  he  applied  to  newspapers  were  not  of  the  kind 
with  which  they  were  in  the  habit  of  celebrating  them 
selves.  Their  enterprise  in  obtaining  news  he  described 
as  a  mercenary  diligence  in  the  collection  and  diffusion 
of  information,  whether  true  or  false.  Nor  were  his 
comments  upon  those  concerned  in  carrying  them  on 
more  favorable.  What  we  should  call  a  reporter  he,  on 
one  occasion,  mildly  spoke  of  as  a  "  miscreant  who  pan 
dered  for  the  press."  In  the  last  novel  he  wrote,  he 
energetically  termed  this  whole  class  the  funguses  of 
letters  who  flourished  on  the  dunghill  of  the  common 
mind  ;  and  that  in  their  view  the  sole  use  for  which  the 
universe  was  created  was  to  furnish  paragraphs  for 


WAR  WITH  THE  PRESS.  177 

newspapers.  Men  in  the  higher  grades  of  the  profes 
sion  fared  little  better.  Against  the  political  journals, 
in  particular,  he  brought  the  charge  that  under  the  pre 
tence  of  serving  the  public  they  were  mainly  used  to 
aid  the  ambition  or  gratify  the  spite  of  their  editors. 

Even  as  early  as  1832,  Cooper  had  awakened  the  in 
dignation  of  the  press  by  an  incidental  remark  made  in 
the  introduction  to  "  The  Heidenmauer."  He  was  de 
scribing  a  journey  through  a  part  of  Belgium  in  which 
the  Dutch  troops  had  been  operating  the  week  before 
his  arrival.  They  had  been  reported  as  having  commit 
ted  unusual  excesses.  Of  these  excesses  he  said  he 
could  find  no  trace.  He  went  on  to  add  a  sentence 
which  has  apparently  only  a  slight  connection  with 
what  had  gone  before.  "  Each  hour,  as  life  advances," 
he  wrote,  "  am  I  made  to  see  how  capricious  and  vulgar 
is  the  immortality  conferred  by  a  newspaper."  This 
remark  was  warmly  resented.  It  was  asserted  to  be  a 
declaration,  not  merely  of  indifference  to  the  opinion  of 
the  press,  but  of  a  preference  on  his  part  of  its  censure 
to  its  praise.  Its  business,  therefore,  was  to  see  that 
his  wishes  should  be  carried  out. 

After  the  controversy  in  regard  to  the  Three  Mile 
Point,  the  attacks  of  the  Whig  journals  increased  in  bit 
terness.  The  state  of  mind  it  caused  in  Cooper  can  be 
seen  in  a  little  volume,  published  by  him  in  April,  1838, 
entitled  "The  American  Democrat."  This  work  is  made 
up  of  a  singular  mixture  of  abstract  discussions  on  liberty 
and  equality,  on  the  nature  of  parties,  on  forms  of  govern 
ment,  and  of  remarks  on  national  habits  and  manners.  It 
is  not  an  interesting  book.  Yet  it  is  fair  to  say  of  it,  that 
it  is  animated  throughout  by  a  lofty  patriotism,  and  it 
manifests  a  clear  view  of  the  dangers  and  duties  of  a  de- 
12 


178  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

mocracy,  with  its  comparative  advantages  and  disadvan 
tages.  But  it  likewise  exhibited  some  of  the  most  un 
compromising  traits  of  the  author's  character.  In  writing 
it,  he  was  not  aiming  at  popularity ;  it  might  not  be  much 
out  of  the  way  to  say  that  he  was  aiming  at  unpopular 
ity.  The  doctrine  with  which  he  sets  out  is,  that  in  this 
country  power  rests  with  the  people,  and  power  ought 
always  to  be  chidden  rather  than  commended.  He  was 
accordingly  liberal  in  criticism.  But  the  value  of  what 
.he  said  was  largely  impaired,  if  not  wholly  destroyed 
by  the  one-sidedness  of  view  and  tendency  to  over-state 
ment  into  which  his  ardor  of  feeling  now  habitually 
hurried  him.  In  nothing  is  this  extravagance  more 
strikingly  seen  than  in  the  comments  in  this  work  upon 
the  press.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  what  he 
said  ;  but  the  justice  of  some  of  his  views  was  de 
prived  of  any  effect  by  the  exaggeration  and  consequent 
injustice  of  others.  The  substance  of  his  remarks  was 
that  there  were  more  newspapers  in  this  country  than 
in  Europe,  but  they  were  generally  of  a  lower  charac 
ter.  The  multiplication  of  them  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  little  capital  was  required  in  their  creation,  and  lit 
tle  intelligence  employed  in  their  management.  Their 
number  was,  therefore,  not  a  thing  to  be  boasted  of  but 
rather  to  be  sorrowed  over,  since  the  quality  diminished 
in  an  inverse  ratio  to  the  quantity.  Nor  was  there 
anything  in  the  methods  employed  by  the  press  that 
justified  any  exultation  in  its  prosperity.  It  tyran 
nized  over  public  men,  over  letters,  over  the  stage,  over 
even  private  life.  Under  the  pretence  of  preserving 
public  morals,  it  corrupted  them  to  the  core.  Under 
the  semblance  of  maintaining  liberty,  it  was  gradually 
establishing  a  despotism  as  rude,  as  grasping,  and  as  vul- 


WAR  WITH  THE  PRESS.  179 

• 
gar  as  that  of  any  state  known.      It  loudly  professed 

freedom  of  opinion,  but  exhibited  no  tolerance.  It  pa 
raded  patriotism,  but  never  sacrificed  interest.  But  its 
great  fundamental  failing  was  the  uutrustworthiness  of 
its  statements.  It  existed  to  pervert  truth.  Its  con 
ductors  were  mainly  political  adventurers.  They  were 
unscrupulous,  but  they  were  not  so  utterly  ignorant  that 
they  failed  to  see  the  necessity  of  occasionally  making 
correct  assertions.  It  was,  however,  this  mixture  of 
fact  with  fiction  that  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  evil  in 
fluence  exerted.  The  result  of  it  all  was  that  the  en 
tire  nation,  in  a  moral  sense,  breathed  an  atmosphere  of 
falsehood.  He  concluded  his  indictment  by  declaring 
that  the  American  press  would  seem  to  have  been  ex 
pressly  devised  by  the  great  agent  of  mischief,  to  de 
press  and  destroy  all  that  was  good,  and  to  elevate  and 
advance  all  that  was  evil. 

This  style  of  remark  was  certainly  not  designed  to 
win  newspaper  favor  or  support.  But  he  went  even  far 
ther  in  his  novels  of  "  Homeward  Bound  "  and  "  Home 
as  Found."  In  those  two  works  he  drew  the  portrait 
of  an  American  editor  in  the  person  of  Steadfast  Dodge 
of  the  Active  Inquirer.  All  the  baser  qualities  of  hu 
man  nature  were  united  in  this  ideal  representative  of 
the  press.  He  was  a  sneak,  a  spy,  a  coward,  a  dema 
gogue,  a  parasite,  a  lickspittle,  a  fawner  upon  all  from 
whom  he  hoped  help,  a  slanderer  of  all  who  did  not  care 
to  endure  his  society.  Such  a  picture  did  not  rise  even 
to  the  dignity  of  caricature.  Nor  is  it  relieved  either 
in  this  work  or  elsewhere  by  others  drawn  favorably. 
The  reader  of  Cooper  will  search  his  writings  in  vain 
for  a  portrait  which  any  member  of  the  editorial  pro 
fession  would  be  glad  to  recognize  as  his  own. 


180  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

All  this  was  vigorous  enough,  but  it  could  hardly  be 
called  profitable.  Cooper  had  now  cultivated  to  perfec 
tion  the  art  of  saying  injudicious  things  as  well  as  the 
art  of  saying  things  injudiciously.  His  ability  in  hitting 
upon  the  very  line  of  remark  that  would  still  further 
enrage  the  hostile,  and  irritate  the  indifferent  and  even 
the  friendly,  assumed  almost  the  nature  of  genius.  The 
power  of  his  attacks  could  not  be  gainsaid.  But  while 
they  inspired  his  opponents  with  respect,  they  filled  his 
friends  with  dismay.  He  was  soon  in  a  singular  posi 
tion.  He  enjoyed  at  one  and  the  same  time  the  double 
distinction  of  being  reviled  in  England  for  his  aggres 
sive  republicanism,  and  of  being  denounced  in  America 
for  aping  the  airs  of  the  English  aristocracy.  It  hardly 
seemed  a  favorable  time  for  beginning  hostilities  in  a 
new  field.  Yet  it  was  then  that  he  entered  upon  his 
famous  legal  war  with  the  Whig  newspapers  of  the 
state  of  New  York. 

A  detailed  account  of  the  libel  suits  instituted  by 
Cooper  would  form  one  of  the  most  striking  chapters  in 
the  history  of  the  American  press  ;  and  for  some  rea 
sons  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  plan  he  had  of  writing 
a  full  account  of  them  was  never  carried  out.  Here 
only  a  slight  summary  can  be  given.  It  is  well  to  say 
at  the  outset  that  many  assertions  ordinarily  made 
about  them  are  utterly  false.  For  certain  of  these 
prevalent  misconceptions  Greeley  is  responsible.  He 
spoke  of  these  trials  with  some  fullness  in  commenting 
upon  libel  suits  in  his  "  Recollections  of  a  Busy  Life." 
But  Greeley's  life  was  too  busy  for  him  always  to  recol 
lect  accurately.  While  he  had  not  the  slightest  inten 
tion  to  say  anything  untrue,  what  he  said  was  in  some 
instances  of  this  character ;  though  more  often  it  was  mis- 


THE  NEWSPAPER  LIBEL  SUITS.  181 

leading  rather  than  false.  But  outside  of  what  Greeley 
has  written,  there  are  several  erroneous  assertions  cur 
rent.  One  of  the  most  common  of  these  is  the  state 
ment  that  Cooper's  success  in  them  was  mainly  due  to 
the  application  of  the  law  maxim,  that  the  greater  the 
truth  the  greater  the  libel.  There  was  never  any 
ground  for  even  an  insinuation  of  this  kind.  Cooper, 
when  his  attention  was  called  to  it,  treated  it  with  con 
tempt.  "'The  pretense,"  he  wrote  in  1845,  "that  our 
courts  have  ever  overruled  that  the  truth  is  not  a  com 
plete  defense  in  a  libel  suit  in  the  civil  action,  can  only 
gain  credit  with  the  supremely  ignorant."  In  criminal 
indictments  the  New  York  statute  of  1805  had  ex 
pressly  declared  that  the  truth  might  be  pleaded  in  evi 
dence  by  the  defense.  The  Constitution  of  1821  made 
this  provision  part  of  the  fundamental  law,  and  it  was 
adopted  from  that  into  the  Constitution  of  1846.  The 
assertion  owed  its  origin  wholly  to  the  effort  of  beaten 
parties  to  explain  their  defeat  on  some  other  ground 
than  that  they  had  been  found  guilty  of  the  offense  with 
which  they  had  been  charged. 

A  more  preposterous  statement  even  than  this  was 
that  the  question  involved  in  these  suits  was  the  right 
of  editors  to  criticise  the  productions  of  authors.  In 
not  one  of  these  trials  was  the  literary  judgment  passed 
by  the  reviewer  mentioned  as  having  the  slightest  bear 
ing  on  the  case.  It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to  say 
that  it  was  the  attack  upon  the  character  of  the  man 
that  alone  came  under  the  consideration  of  the  courts, 
and  not  that  upon  the  character  of  the  book.  The 
impudent  pretense  was,  however,  set  up  at  the  time  that 
the  press  had  a  right  to  go  behind  the  writer's  work, 
and  assail  him  himself.  "  Does  an  author,"  said  u  The 


182  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

New  Yorker"  in  February,  1837,  ''subject  himself  to 
personal  criticism  by  submitting  a  work  to  the  public? 
If  he  makes  his  work  the  channel  of  disparagement 
upon  masses  of  men,  he  does." 

The  most  marked  feature  of  these  trials  is  that 
Cooper  fought  his  battle  single-handed.  With  a  very 
few  exceptions,  —  notably  the  "  Albany  Argus  "  and  the 
"  New  York  Evening  Post,"  —  the  press  of  the  party 
with  which  he  was  nominally  allied,  remained  neutral. 
Some  of  them  were  even  hostile ;  for  the  novelist's  crit 
icism  of  editors  had  known  no  distinction  of  politics. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  press  of  the  opposition  party 
was  united.  From  East  to  West  they  bore  down  upon 
Cooper  with  a  common  cry.  No  event  in  his  life  showed 
more  plainly  the  fearless  and  uncompromising  nature 
of  the  man ;  nor  again  did  anything  else  he  was  con 
cerned  in  mark  more  clearly  his  versatility  and  vigor. 
In  these  trials  he  was  assisted  by  his  nephew,  Richard 
Cooper,  who  was  his  regular  counsel.  But  outside  of 
him,  in  the  civil  suits,  he  had  very  rarely  any  help,  and 
in  most  of  them  he  argued  his  own  cause.  Wherever 
he  appeared  in  person  he  seems  to  have  come  off  uni 
formly  victorious.  Nor  were  his  victories  won  over 
inferior  opponents.  The  reputation  of  the  lawyer  is 
under  ordinary  conditions  limited  necessarily  to  a  small 
circle.  Even  in  that,  considering  the  amount  of  in 
tellectual  acuteness  and  power  displayed,  it  is  an  ex 
ceedingly  transitory  reputation.  But  the  men  against 
whom  Cooper  was  pitted  stood  in  the  very  front  rank  of 
their  profession.  They  were  leaders  of  the  bar  in  the 
greatest  state  in  the  Union.  Nor  have  times  so  far 
swept  by  that  their  names  are  not  still  remembered; 
and  stories  are  still  told  of  their  achievements  by  those 


TEE  NE  WSPAPER  L IBEL  S  UITS.  183 

who  have  taken  their  places.  Cooper,  not  a  lawyer  by 
profession,  met  these  men  on  their  own  ground  and  de 
feated  them.  It  was  not  long,  indeed,  after  these  suits 
were  instituted,  that  it  was  claimed  by  his  friends,  and 
often  conceded  by  his  foes,  that  he  was  the  one  man  in 
the  country  best  acquainted  with  the  law  of  libel.  Our 
surprise  at  his  success  is  increased  by  the  fact  that  he 
was  not  only  unpopular  himself,  but  he  was  engaged  in 
an  unpopular  cause.  The  verdicts  he  won  were  usually 
small  in  amount,  but  they  were  wrung  from  reluctant 
juries,  and  frequently  in  the  face  of  bitter  prejudices 
that  had  to  be  overcome  before  he  could  hope  for  a  fair 
consideration  of  his  own  side. 

At  the  outset  the  editorial  fraternity  were  disposed  to 
take  these  libel  suits  jocularly.  They  were  looked  upon 
as  a  gigantic  joke.  Nor  did  this  feeling  die  out  when 
the  first  trial  resulted  in  Cooper's  favor.  It  was  pro 
posed  that  the  newspapers  throughout  the  country 
should  contribute  each  one  dollar  to  a  fund  to  be  called 
"  The  Effingham  Libel  Fund,"  out  of  which  all  dam 
ages  awarded  the  novelist  were  to  be  paid.  Every  ad 
ditional  suit  was  welcomed  with  a  shout.  As  time  went 
on  this  insolence  gave  way  to  apprehension.  In  nearly 
every  case  the  plaintiff  was  coming  off  successful.  The 
comments  of  the  press  began  to  assume  an  expostula- 
tory  tone.  Cooper  was  gravely  informed  that  were  he 
to  be  tried  in  the  High  Court  of  Public  Opinion  — 
this  imaginary  tribunal  was  usually  made  imposing  by 
dignifying  its  initial  letters  —  for  his  libels  upon  his 
country  and  his  countrymen,  the  damages  he  would 
have  to  pay  would  not  only  sweep  away  the  amounts 
given  him  by  the  results  in  the  regular  courts,  but  even 
the  profits  that  had  accrued  from  the  sale  of  his  novels. 


184  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

These  remonstrances  were  often  animated  also  by  a 
new-born  zeal  for  his  literary  fame.  He  was  told  he 
was  his  own  greatest  enemy.  He  was  doing  himself  ir 
reparable  injury  by  the  course  he  was  taking.  He  was 
so  acting  as  to  lose  the  reputation  he  had  early  won. 
This  feeling  naturally  increased  in  intensity  as  suits 
continued  to  be  decided  in  his  favor.  The  newspapers 
at  last  rose  to  the  full  appreciation  of  the  situation. 
The  liberty  of  the  press  was  actually  in  danger.  The 
trials  were  said  to  be  conducted  in  defiance  of  law  as 
well  as  justice.  The  judges  belonged  to  the  Democratic 
party,  and  they  wrested  the  statutes  from  their  true  in 
tent  in  order  to  oppress  the  Whig  editor.  There  came 
finally  to  be  something  exquisitely  absurd  in  the  utter 
ances  of  the  journals  on  the  subject  of  these  suits.  One 
would  fancy  from  reading  them  that  the  plaintiif  was  a 
monster  resembling  the  bloodthirsty  ogre  of  a  fairy  tale, 
bullying  judges,  overawing  juries,  maliciously  bent  on 
crushing  the  free-born  American  who  should  have  the 
temerity  to  express  an  unfavorable  opinion  of  his  writ 
ings.  Coriolanus,  indeed,  never  fluttered  the  dove-cotes 
in  Corioli  more  effectively  than  for  some  years  Cooper 
did  the  Whig  newspaper  offices  of  the  state  of  New 
York. 

The  origin  of  the  suits  was  as  follows :  An  account 
of  the  circumstances  connected  with  the  Three  Mile 
Point  controversy  appeared,  immediately  after  they  had 
taken  place,  in  the  "  Norwich  Telegraph,"  a  paper  pub 
lished  in  the  neighboring  county  of  Chenango.  The 
article  began  with  a  reference  to  Cooper.  "  This  gen 
tleman,"  it  said,  "  not  satisfied  with  having  drawn  upon 
his  head  universal  contempt  from  abroad,  has  done  the 
same  thing  at  Cooperstown  where  he  resides."  In  this 


THE  NEWSPAPER  LIBEL  SUITS.  185 

spirit  it  went  on  to  give  its  report  of  the  events  told  in 
the  preceding  chapter.  "  So  stands  the  matter  at  pres 
ent,"  it  closed  its  account,  "  Mr.  J.  F.  C.  threatening 
the  citizens  on  the  one  hand,  and  being  derided  and 
despised  by  them  on  the  other."  In  conclusion  it  called 
upon  the  u  Otsego  Republican,"  the  Whig  newspaper  of 
Cooperstown,  to  furnish  all  the  facts  in  the  case. 

The  latter  journal  was  edited  by  a  man  named  Barber. 
He  was  not  slow  to  comply  with  the  request,  and  in  one 
of  the  numbers  of  August,  1837,  he  republished  the  ar 
ticle  of  the  '•  Chenango  Telegraph  "  with  additional  asser 
tions  of  his  own.  The  latter  belonged  more  to  the  realm 
of  fiction  than  of  fact.  Three  Mile  Point  he  declared 
had  been  reserved  expressly  for  the  use  of  the  inhab 
itants  of  Cooperstown  by  the  father  of  the  novelist. 
When  the  notice  was  published  depriving  them  of  their 
rights,  a  meeting  had  been  called  which  had  been  largely 
attended.  The  room  was  crowded  with  the  industry, 
intelligence,  and  respectability  of  the  village.  Power 
ful  addresses  were  made  and  a  series  of  resolutions  were 
passed.  These  expressed  the  feelings  of  all  present. 
"  The  remarks,"  the  newspaper  continued,  "  were  of  a 
lucid  character,  and  the  resolutions,  full,  pungent,  and 
yet  respectful." 

Two  days  after  this  article  had  appeared,  the  editor 
received  a  letter  from  Cooper's  counsel  which  was  to 
the  effect  that  he  would  be  prosecuted  for  libel  unless 
he  retracted  his  statements.  On  his  side  the  novelist 
undertook  to  make  perfectly  clear  to  him  that  his  asser 
tions  were  untrue ;  but  he  expected,  after  the  real  facts 
had  been  set  before  him  and  fully  examined,  that  he 
would  take  back  what  he  had  said.  "  JN"o  atonement," 
the  letter  concluded,  "  will  be  accepted,  that  is  not  first 


186  JAMES  FEN IM ORE   COOPER. 

approved  of  by  the  plaintiff  in  the  suit."  Barber  was  not 
disposed  either  to  retract  or  to  investigate  the  accuracy  of 
the  facts  he  had  stated.  He  published  the  letter,  how 
ever,  With  the  usual  solemn  declaration  that  seems  to  be 
kept  in  type  in  all  newspaper  offices,  that  in  doing  what 
he  had  done  he  had  been  actuated  solely  by  the  noblest 
motives ;  that  he  had  not  published  anything  libellous ; 
that  if  in  anything  he  had  been  misinformed,  he  held 
himself  always  ready  to  make  the  proper  correction. 
"  In  conclusion,"  he  said,  "  not  being  sensible  of  having 
injured  Mr.  Cooper,  we  consider  that  we  have  no  atone 
ment  to  offer."  Under  these  circumstances  the  suit 
went  on.  It  did  not  come  to  final  trial  until  May, 
1839,  at  the  Montgomery  circuit  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
Joshua  A.  Spencer  was  the  principal  lawyer  for  the 
defense,  while  Cooper  conducted  his  own  case.  The  jury 
returned  a  verdict  of  four  hundred  dollars  for  the  plain 
tiff.  Eventually  the  editor  sought  to  evade  in  various 
ways  the  payment  of  the  whole  award,  and  did  succeed 
in  evading  the  payment  of  a  good  part  of  it.  A  ter 
rible  outcry  was,  however,  raised  against  Cooper  be 
cause  the  sheriff  levied  upon  some  money  that  had  been 
carefully  laid  away  and  locked  up  by  Barber  in  a  trunk. 
With  this  begins  the  famous  series  of  suits  that  occu 
pied  no  small  share  of  the  few  following  years  of  the 
author's  life.  At  the  time  the  first  one  was  decided, 
another  was  pending  against  the  editor  of  the  "  Chenarigo 
Telegraph."  The  leading  Whig  newspapers  naturally 
took  the  side  of  their  associates.  For  a  time  they  had 
a  good  deal  to  say  about  the  greatest  slanderer  of  the 
whole  profession  pouncing  upon  one  of  the  fraternity 
least  able  to  defend  himself,  simply  because  in  a  moment 
of  haste  and  excitement  he  had  been  guilty  of  what  they 


THE  NEWSPAPER  LIBEL  SUITS.  187 

were  pleased  to  call  a  technical  libel.  It  did  not  seem 
to  occur  to  them  that  any  one  could  be  so  foolhardy  as 
to  make  them  the  object  of  attack.  They  did  not  have 
to  wait  long  to  discover  that  the  influence  wielded  by  a 
journal  was  no  protection.  Besides  the  newspapers  al 
ready  mentioned,  Cooper  prosecuted  the  "  Oueida  Whig,"  ~ 
published  at  Utica.  This  suit  was  tried  in  April,  1842. 
Though  successful  in  it,  the  damages  awarded  were 
slight,  being  but  seventy  dollars.  A  suit,  tried  little 
more  than  six  months  before  against  the  "  Evening  Sig 
nal,"  of  New  York  city,  edited  by  Park  Benjamin,  had 
resulted  in  the  recovery  of  a  larger  sum:  The  amount 
in  this  case  was  three  hundred  and  seventy-five  dollars. 
With  these  exceptions  his  suits  were  directed  against 
the  "  Courier  and  Enquirer,"  edited  by  James  Watson 
Webb ;  "  the  Albany  Evening  Journal,"  edited  by  Thur-  £, 
low  Weed;  the  "Tribune,"  edited  by  Horace  Greeley, 
and  the  "  Commercial  Advertiser,"  edited  by  William 
Leet  Stone.  These  were  the  leading  Whig  journals  in 
the  state,  and  among  the  most  influential  in  the  whole 
country.  It  could  not  be  said  that  Cooper  hesitated 
about  flying  at  high  game. 

In  the  controversy  with  Webb,  Cooper  had  the  least 
success.  This  was  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  it  was  not 
a  civil  action  that  was  brought  against  the  former,  but  a 
criminal  indictment.  Juries  might  make  editors  pay  for 
the  privilege  of  expressing  their  feelings  of  contempt  or 
hate,  but  they  were  not  inclined  to  send  them  to  prison. 
The  indictment  in  this  case  was  based  upon  a  criticism  of 
"  Home  as  Found."  The  review,  which  was  of  several 
columns  in  length,  had  appeared  in  the  "  Courier  and 
Enquirer"  of  November  22,  1838.  There  was  very 
little  in  the  way  of  hostile  insinuation  and  assertion  and 


188  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

personal  depreciation  tha^t  could  not  be  found  in  this 
article  and  in  some  which  followed.  The  attack  was 
moreover  a  skillful  one.  It  was  directed  largely  against 
those  points  where  Cooper  had  fairly  laid  himself  open 
to  ridicule.  Especially  was  this  the  case  in  the  matter 
of  descent  and  family.  Webb  represented  the  novelist 
as  the  son  of  a  humble  hawker  of  fish  through  the  streets 
of  Burlington,  who  had  afterward  become  a  respecta 
ble  though  riot  a  first-class  wheelwright.  By  probity, 
industry,  and  enterprise  he  had  finally  risen  to  wealth 
and  position.  The  maternal  grandmother  of  the  author 
had,  according  to  this  same  story,  for  more  than  twenty 
years  occupied  a  stall  and  sold  fresh  vegetables  in  the 
Philadelphia  market,  and  was  remarkable  for  the  su 
perior  quality  of  the  articles  she  kept.  Webb  praised 
the  father  at  the  expense  of  the  son.  The  former  had 
never  been  ashamed  of  his  humble  origin.  On  the  con 
trary,  he  was  justly  proud  of  the  intelligence  and  abil 
ity  which,  unaided  by  any  mere  external  advantages, 
had  raised  him  to  a  station  in  life  so  much  higher  than 
he  at  first  held.  Of  such  a  career  any  child  had  a  right 
to  be  proud.  These  were  statements  that  could  not 
well  be  resented,  conceding  that  they  were  injurious,  nor 
could  they  well  be  corrected,  conceding  that  they  were 
untrue.  Webb,  who  had  recently  returned  from  Eu 
rope,  asserted,  moreover,  that  he  had  been  present  at 
a  dinner-party  in  London,  where  "  Home  as  Found " 
came  under  discussion.  On  that  occasion  he  had  fallen 
into  a  conversation  about  it  with  "  a  nobleman  of  dis 
tinction."  The  latter  informed  him  that  Cooper's  at 
tack  upon  English  society  had  materially  injured  the 
sale  of  his  works  in  that  country,  and  it  was  evident 
that  he  was  now  seeking  to  regain  the  ground  and  the 


THE  NEWSPAPER  LIBEL  SUITS.  189 

market  he  had  lost,  by  praising  everything  English  at 
the  expense  of  everything  American  ;  but  as  his  base 
motives  were  now  fully  understood,  no  one  was  led 
astray.  The  reported  conversation  carries  internal  evi 
dence  of  its  authenticity.  It  required  a  very  noble  lord 
to  impute  to  a  well-known  writer  motives  so  very  noble  ; 
and  none  but  an  Englishman  could  have  appreciated 
so  fully  the  eternal  conditions  of  success  in  the  Eng 
lish  market.  These  remarks  of  Webb's  are,  however, 
merely  incidental.  His  direct  personal  attack  on  Cooper 
rivaled  that  of  the  British  periodicals  in  ferocity.  "  We 
may  and  do  know  him,"  said  he  in  the  only  extract  for 
which  there  is  room,  "  as  a  base-minded  caitiff  who 
has  traduced  his  country  for  filthy  lucre  and  low-born 
spleen  ;  but  time  only  can  render  harmless  abroad  the 
envenomed  barb  of  the  slanderer  who  is  in  fact  a  traitor 
to  national  pride  and  national  character." 

For  this  article  Webb  was  indicted  by  the  grand  jury 
of  Otsego  County,  in  February,  1839.  In  June  of  the 
same  year  a  second  indictment  was  found  against  him 
for  saying  that  the  first  was  secured  by  political  trickery. 
The  trial,  for  various  reasons,  did  not  come  off  until  No 
vember,  1841.  Webb  made  a  public  retraction  of  the 
statements  upon  which  the  second  indictment  was  found; 
and  this  was  accepted  on  the  part  of  the  prosecution. 
On  the  trial  for  the  first  indictment  the  jury  disagreed. 
The  defendant  objected  to  Cooper's  summing  up  the 
case,  and  this  objection  the  court  sustained.  It  was  a 
wise  policy  :  for  the  trials  in  the  civil  suits  showed  that 
the  novelist  was  full  as  effective  in  addressing  a  jury 
orally  as  he  ever  was  in  addressing  the  public  in  his  most 
successful  stories.  One  amusing  feature  of  this  case 
was  that  the  two  volumes  of  "  Home  as  Found  "  were 


190  JAXES  FEXIMORE  COOPER. 

read  to  the  jury  from  beginning  to  end  by  the  plaintiffs 
counsel,  Ambrose  L.  Jordan. 

Cooper  was  not  discouraged  by  the  ill  result  of  this 
trial.  The  indictment  was  still  pressed.  A  second  trial 
took  place  at  Cooperstown  in  June,  1843.  Again  the 
jury  disagreed.  A  third  trial  is  reported  to  have  taken 
place  and  to  have  resulted  in  the  acquittal  of  Webb; 
but  I  find  no  account  of  it  in  the  newspapers  to  which 
I  have  had  access. 

The  suits  brought  against  the  "Albany  Evening 
Journal  "  were,  however,  the  most  striking  in  this 
whole  contest.  They  show,  too,  more  clearly  than  the 
others,  the  spirit  and  methods  with  which  it  was  waged 
on  both  sides.  Some  features  are  especially  marked. 
One  is  the  illustration  furnished  of  the  onslaughts  that 
were  made  upon  the  novelist's  character  and  reputation, 
not  from  any  real  ill-will,  but  from  pure  wantonness  or 
at  least  very  slight  political  hostility.  Another  is  the 
jaunty  superciliousness  with  which  the  conductors  of 
the  press  at  first  affected  to  treat  the  threats  of  prose 
cution.  More  noteworthy  than  anything  else,  however, 
is  the  view  given  of  the  deliberate  manner  in  which 
Cooper  began  these  suits,  and  the  relentless  tenacity 
with  which  he  followed  them  up.  The  "  Evening  Jour 
nal,"  of  which  Thurlow  Weed  was  then  the  head,  partly 
from  the  political  skill  of  its  editor,  and  partly  from  its 
being  the  organ  of  the  party  at  the  state  capital,  was, 
at  that  time,  the  most  influential  Whig  journal  in  New 
York.  Weed  published  in  it,  in  two  different  numbers 
of  August,  1837,  the  articles  which  had  appeared  in  the 
"  Chenango  Telegraph  "  and  the  "  Otsego  Republican  " 
about  the  Three  Mile  Point  controversy.  He  accompa 
nied  them  with  some  comments  of  his  own  in  regard  to 


THE  NEWSPAPER  LIBEL  SUITS.  191 

Cooper.  "  He  was,  as  is  known,"  said  he  in  his  second 
notice,  "  pretty  generally  despised  abroad.  He  is  now 
equally  distinguished  at  home."  The  editor  then  went 
on  to  speak  of  the  act  of  meanness,  as  he  termed  it, 
which  had  excited  the  contempt  of  the  novelist's  neigh 
bors  ;  and  that  the  more  precise  account  now  furnished 
by  the  "  Otsego  Republican"  would  rather  increase 
than  diminish  the  measure  of  scorn  that  had  been 
aroused.  Much  was  Weed's  surprise  when,  on  the  18th 
of  April,  1840,  he  received  a  letter  from  Cooper's  coun 
sel  requiring  a  retraction  of  what  had  been  said  in  1837, 
and  a  further  statement  that  it  must  be  made  within  a 
certain  time  or  a  suit  for  libel  would  be  begun.  He 
treated  this  notice  cavalierly.  He  was  amused  by  it 
even  more  than  he  was  astonished.  As  it  had  taken 
three  years  for  Cooper  to  bring  the  suit,  he  concluded 
that  he  would  take  three  weeks  at  any  rate  to  reply  to 
the  demand  for  a  retraction.  A  second  letter  from 
Cooper's  counsel,  dated  the  4th  of  May,  met  with  the 
same  neglect.  Accordingly  on  the  25th  of  that  month 
he  had  the  pleasure  of  announcing  that  he  had  been 
sued  for  libel  by  "  Mr.  John  Effingham." 

The  case  after  being  put  off  once  on  a  very  frivolous 
pretext,  came  to  trial  at  the  Montgomery  circuit  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  held  at  Fonda,  in  November,  1841. 
When  it  was  called  Weed  was  not  present,  nor  was 
counsel  for  him.  Cooper  consented  to  have  the  case  go 
over  for  a  day.  It  was  then  called  again.  Nothing 
was  seen  of  the  defendant,  nothing  had  been  heard  from 
him.  The  case  was  accordingly  sent  to  the  jury  with  a 
speech  from  the  plaintiffs  counsel.  A  verdict  of  four 
hundred  dollars  was  returned.  Weed  arrived  at  Fonda 
the  evening  of  that  day,  and  wrote  anonymously  to  the 


192  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

"  New  York  Tribune  "  an  account  of  what  had  taken 
place.  In  some  of  its  details  it  was  more  entertaining 
than  accurate.  The  reason  he  gave  for  his  absence 
from  the  trial  was  that  he  had  been  kept  at  home  by 
severe  illness  in  his  family.  But  the  result  enabled 
him  to  notice  in  this  manner  the  sum  awarded  by  the 

JU1T- 

"  This  meagre  verdict  under  the  circumstances  is  a 
severe  and  mortifying  rebuke  to  Cooper,  who  had  every 
thing  his  own  way. 

"  The  value  of  Mr.  Cooper's  character,  therefore,  has 
been  judicially  determined. 

"It  is  worth  exactly  four  hundred  dollars." 

For  the  publication  of  this  letter  a  suit  was  immedi 
ately  begun  against  the  "  Tribune."  But  though  he 
wrote  for  that  journal  an  amusing  account  of  the  trial,  in 
his  own  paper  Weed  gave  vent  to  the  anger  which  the 
result  had  excited.  The  verdicts  gained  in  his  various 
cases  by  "  this  man  Cooper."  he  said,  had  made  "  deep 
inroads  upon  a  fame  once  bright  and  enviable,  but  now 
sadly  dim  and  dilapidated."  He  then  recited  in  full  the 
misdeeds  of  the  novelist.  "  For  all  this,"  concluded  the 
aggrieved  editor,  "connected  with  the  attempt  to  de 
prive  the  citizens  of  a  social  privilege  with  which  they 
were  invested  by  his  honored  father,  we  said  Mr. 
Cooper  was  despised.  And  for  this  he  prosecuted  us. 
And  now  having  again  said  it  he  may  again  prosecute 
us,  if  he  wants  and  thinks  he  can  obtain  four  hundred 
dollars  more." 

Weed  did  not  appreciate  the  fact  that  he  was  not 
dealing  with  a  politician,  but  with  a  man  indifferent  to 
or  rather  contemptuous  of  popular  clamor.  His  chal 
lenge  was  immediately  accepted.  Early  in  December, 


THE  NEWSPAPER  LIBEL  SUITS.  \        193 

1841,  he  was  able  to  announce  the  fact  that  he 
sued  again.  "  The  sheriff,"  he  said,  "  has  served 
other  writ  upon  us  for  an  alleged  libel  upon  Cooper. 
It  remains  to  be  seen  how  much  longer  courts  and  juries 
will  sanction  this  legal  persecution  of  a  man,  who  after 
libeling  his  country  and  calumniating  his  countrymen, 
seeks  to  muzzle  a  free  press."  The  jocular  tone  used 
at  first  had  all  vanished.  Instead  it  was  replaced  by  a 
fierce  spirit  of  wrathfulness  and  defiance.  During  the 
whole  of  December,  18-41,  Weed  kept  constantly  repub- 
lishiug  extracts  from  other  newspapers  reflecting  upon 
and  attacking  Cooper's  character  and  conduct.  These 
were,  he  said,  "sharp  rebukes  "  of  the  novelist's  "  ridicu 
lous  and  unworthy  attempt  to  disgrace  his  own  country 
to  gain  the  favor  and  smiles  of  the  nobility  abroad." 
Some  of  these  newspaper  comments  furnish  very  amus 
ing  reading  now,  especially  as  the  impunity  of  most  of 
the  writers  was  due  to  their  insignificance.  "  We  re 
joice,"  said  one  of  them,  "  to  witness  the  spirit  of  inde 
pendence  manifested  by  the  conductors  of  the  press.  It 
proves  their  incorruptible  integrity  and  their  love  of 
principle,  their  firm  hostility  to  foreign  notions,  and 
their  detestation  of  the  man  who  seeks  to  ape  the  high 
and  aristocratic  manners  of  English  nobility."  These 
valorous  declarations  came  mainly  from  the  country 
papers  of  the  state  of  New  York,  for  the  "  Evening 
Journal "  was  the  Triton  of  these  minnows.  Weed, 
however,  eagerly  reproduced  everything  that  came  from 
outside.  One  article,  in  particular,  from  a  Chicago  pa 
per,  was  published,  in  order  that  Cooper  might  see 
"  what  right-minded  and  unprejudiced  people  say  and 
think  of  him  far  away  in  the  boundless  West." 

The  appeal  was  to  deaf  ears.     Neither   contracted 

13 


194  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

East  nor  boundless  West  affected  Cooper's  resolution. 
As  fast  as  the  articles  were  republished,  they  were  care 
fully  examined,  and  prosecutions  begun  against  the 
"  Evening  Journal "  for  those  of  them  containing  libel- 
ous  matter.  By  the  middle  of  December  five  suits  had 
been  commenced,  and  more  were  under  consideration. 
A  little  later,  if  contemporary  newspaper  reports  can 
be  trusted,  the  number  had  swelled  to  seven.  The  ed 
itor  began  to  appreciate  the  difficulty  and  danger  of  the 
situation.  His  courage,  however,  did  not  falter.  In 
fact  he  looked  upon  himself  as  manfully  standing  in  the 
gap  for  freedom  of  speech.  "  These  suits,"  he  saids 
"  will  determine  whether  an  Independent  Press  is  to  be 
protected  in  the  free  exercise  of  honest  opinion,  or 
whether  it  is  to  be  overawed  and  silenced  by  the  perse 
cutions  of  an  inflated,  litigious,  soured  novelist,  who,  in 
his  better  days  by  the  favor  of  the  Press,  made  the 
money  with  which  he  now  seeks  to  oppress  its  conduct 
ors,  and  sap  its  independence."  He  did  not  purpose  to 
flinch  from  his  duty.  Accordingly  he  announced  that 
he  should  continue  publishing  these  attacks  until  Cooper 
ceased  prosecuting. 

In  this  determination  he  was  encouraged  by  the  re 
sult  of  two  suits  tried  in  April,  1842,  in  the  Otsego 
County  Court.  Though  he  was  beaten  in  both,  the  ver 
dict  was  for  small  amounts.  In  one  case  it  was  fifty-five 
dollars,  in  the  other  eighty-seven  dollars.  This  con 
vinced  the  press  that  the  tide  was  turning.  Again  the 
country  newspapers  were  filled  with  libelous  paragraphs. 
Again  the  novelist  was  denounced  for  his  heartless  abuse 
of  his  country,  and  his  soulless  and  contemptible  vanity. 
Again  these  strictures  were  carefully  collected  from 
every  quarter,  no  matter  how  insignificant,  and  repub- 


THE  NEWSPAPER  LIBEL  SUITS.  195 

lished  in  the  columns  of  the  "  Evening  Journal."  But 
these  cheerful  anticipations  were  speedily  dissipated. 
Another  suit,  tried  at  Fonda  in  the  Supreme  Court  in 
May,  1842,  resulted  in  a  verdict  of  three  hundred  and 
twenty-live  dollars  for  the  plaintiff.  The  country  papers 
were  indignant.  One  of  the  editors  sagely  suggested 
that  u  if  judge  and  jury  are  to  carry  on  this  war  on  the 
press  to  gratify  individual  malignity  much  further,  it 
would  be  well  for  all  editors  to  unite  in  petitioning  the 
legislature  to  pass  a  law  that  judges  should  discharge 
their  duties  impartially,  and  juries  be  composed  of 
honest  and  intelligent  men."  This  profound  suggestion 
marks  pretty  plainly  the  intellectual  grade  to  which 
most  of  the  writers  of  these  paragraphs  had  attained. 
Before  it  could  be  acted  upon  another  suit  had  been  de 
cided.  In  the  September  term  of  the  Supreme  Court 
held  at  Cooperstown,  a  further  verdict  of  two  hundred 
dollars  was  awarded.  In  the  following  month  a  new 
suit  was  begun. 

Weed  had  fought  his  fight  manfully.  But  the  business 
of  publishing  libelous  paragraphs  at  these  rates,  low  as 
they  were,  was  ceasing  to  be  either  pleasant  or  profit 
able.  Besides  his  own  counsel  fees,  the  adverse  verdicts 
carried  with  them  heavy  costs.  He  concluded  to  let 
the  liberty  of  the  press  take  care  of  itself.  Accordingly, 
on  the  14th  of  December,  1842,  he  published,  though 
with  a  grumbling  comment,  a  retraction  of  all  his  pre 
vious  statements.  It  had  been  previously  submitted  to 
the  eminent  lawyer,  Daniel  Cady,  and  by  him  approved. 
It  withdrew,  first,  the  allegations  contained  the  previous 
year  in  a  specific  article  in  the  paper.  "  On  a  review 
of  the  matter  and  a  better  knowledge  of  the  facts,"  were 
the  words  of  the  retraction,  "  I  feel  it  to  be  my  duty  to 


196  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

withdraw  the  injurious  imputations  it  contains  on  the 
character  of  Mr.  Cooper.  It  is  my  wish  that  this  retrac 
tion  should  be  as  broad  as  the  charges.  The  '  Albany 
Evening  Journal '  having  also  contained  various  other 
articles  reflecting  on  Mr.  Cooper's  character,  I  feel  it 
due  to  that  gentleman  to  withdraw  every  charge  that  in 
juriously  affects  his  character." 

The  course  of  instruction  had  been  protracted  and  ex 
pensive,  but  the  lesson  had  been  learned  at  last.  The 
independence  of  the  press  had  been  crushed  by  the  dom 
ineering  despot  of  Cooperstown.  The  controversy 
threatened  to  break  out  again  in  1845,  but  it  seems 
never  to  have  got  beyond  words.  There  is  a  comic  ele 
ment  introduced  into  the  whole  affair  by  the  fact  that 
the  editor  of  the  u  Journal "  was  a  profound  and  even 
bigoted  admirer  of  his  adversary's  novels.  So  fond  was 
he  of  quoting  from  them,  that  according  to  Greeley, 
jokers  at  that  time  gravely  affirmed  that  Weed  had 
never  read  but  three  authors,  —  Shakespeare,  Scott,  and 
Cooper.  In  the  very  heat  of  the  controversy  he  was 
said  to  have  sat  up  all  night  reading  "  The  Pathfinder," 
which  had  come  out  a  little  while  before.  Greeley  also 
asserts  that  the  paragraphs  which  appeared  in  the 
"  Evening  Journal  "  were  merely  designed  as  gentle  re 
minders  to  the  novelist  of  the  folly  of  the  course  he  was 
pursuing.  This  might  find  belief  in  a  society  in  which 
telling  a  man  that  he  was  an  object  of  universal  contempt 
would  be  deemed  an  expression  of  friendly  interest  in 
his  welfare.  When  he  says,  in  addition,  that  there  was 
no  shred,  no  spice  of  malice  in  these  assaults,  he  takes 
away  the  sole  ground  on  which  a  plea  of  palliation  can 
be  brought.  If  not  due  to  that  they  had  not  even  the 
poor  excuse  of  weak  human  nature.  They  were  the 


THE  NEWSPAPER  LIBEL  SUITS.  197 

wanton  acts  of  a  man  who  attacks  another,  not  from  in 
dignation  or  wrath,  but  from  the  mere  desire  of  inflicting 
annoyance  or  pain. 

The  controversy  with  the  "  Commercial  Advertiser  " 
belongs  not  here  but  to  the  account  of  the  "Naval  His 
tory."  It  has  already  been  said  that  the  "  Tribune " 
had  been  sued  for  the  publication  of  Thurlow  Weed's 
letter  describing  the  trial  at  Fonda  in  November,  1841. 
In  December,  1842,  this  case  came  off  at  Ballston. 
Greeley  assumed  the  conduct  of  the  defense.  He  was 
unsuccessful.  The  jury  brought  in  against  him  a  ver 
dict  of  two  hundred  dollars  and  costs.  "We  went  back 
to  dinner,"  he  wrote,  "  took  the  verdict  in  all  meekness, 
took  a  sleigh  and  struck  a  bee-line  for  New  York."  No 
sooner  had  he  reached  the  city  than  he  published  a  most 
entertaining  account  of  the  whole  trial.  It  filled  eleven 
columns  of  the  "  Tribune,"  and  the  demand  for  it  be 
came  so  great  that  it  was  found  necessary  to  publish  it 
in  pamphlet  form.  For  some  expressions  in  it  Cooper 
began  another  suit.  In  this  instance  Greeley  gave  up 
the  plan  of  defending  himself  and  intrusted  the  conduct 
of  his  side  to  Seward.  The  case  dragged  on  for  years 
in  the  New  York  courts,  and,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able 
to  discover,  had  not  been  brought  to  a  final  trial  before 
the  plaintiff's  death. 

By  the  end  of  1843,  Cooper  had  pretty  well  reduced 
the  press  to  silence,  so  far  as  comments  on  his  character 
were  concerned.  It  was  insignificance  or  remoteness 
alone  that  protected  the  libeler.  The  leading  newspa 
pers  of  the  state,  however  much  they  might  abuse  his 
writings,  learned  to  be  very  cautious  of  what  they  said 
of  him  personally.  But  it  was  a  barren  victory  he  had 
won.  He  had  lost  far  more  than  he  had  gained.  That 


198  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE  COOPER. 

such  would  be  the  result,  he  knew,  while  he  was  engaged 
in  the  controversy.  It  affected,  at  the  time,  his  literary 
reputation,  and,  as  a  result,  the  sale  of  his  writings  ;  and 
since  his  death  it  has  been  a  principal  agency  in  keeping 
alive  a  distorted  and  fictitious  view  of  his  personal  char 
acter.  A  common  impression  came  to  be  of  him  some 
thing  like  the  description  which  Greeley's  lawyers  gave 
of  the  estimation  in  which  he  was  held  in  Otsego 
County,  in  some  legal  papers  bearing  the  date  of  July, 
1845.  This  was  to  the  effect  that  he  had  acquired  and 
had  among  his  neighbors  "  the  reputation  of  a  proud, 
captious,  censorious,  arbitrary,  dogmatical,  malicious,  il 
liberal,  revengeful,  and  litigious  man."  This  one-sided 
and  hostile  view  of  a  strongly-marked  character  had  just 
enough  of  truth  in  it  to  cause  it  to  be  widely  received 
as  an  accurate  and  complete  picture.  In  a  similar  way 
the  notion  became  current  that  he  sought  to  ape  the 
manners  of  the  English  aristocracy.  Whatever  Cooper's 
foibles  were,  they  were  none  of  them  imported.  He 
was  too  proud  in  feeling  and  too  self-centred  in  opin 
ion  ever  to  think  of  aping  anything  or  anybody.  But 
on  these  points  the  prejudices  and  misrepresentations  of 
that  day  have  lasted  down  to  this. 

The  account  given  makes  it  clear  that  the  occasion  of 
bringing  the  first  of  these  libel  suits  was  accidental. 
But  as  time  went  on  the  prosecution  of  them  assumed 
to  Cooper  the  shape  of  a  duty.  When  once  it  had 
taken  on  that  character,  no  possible  degree  of  unpopu 
larity  or  odium  could  have  prevented  him  from  persist 
ing  in  his  course.  He  treated  with  disdain  the  common 
arguments  used  to  persuade  him  to  abandon  them.  To 
one  of  these  he  referred  directly  in  a  novel  published  in 
1844.  He  was  insisting  upon  the  superiority  of  the 


THE  NEWSPAPER  LIBEL  SUITS.  199 

past  to  the  present,  a  sentiment  which  became  a  favor 
ite  burden  of  his  latter-day  utterances.  "  The  public 
sense  of  right,"  he  said,  "  had  not  become  blunted  by 
familiarity  with  abuses,  and  the  miserable  and  craven 
apology  was  never  heard  for  not  enforcing  the  laws  that 
nobody  cared  for  what  the  newspapers  say."  He  cer 
tainly  had  some  justification  for  the  hardest  things  he 
thought  and  said  of  the  press.  The  newspapers  which 
circulated  the  false  reports  about  his  father's  disposition 
of  the  property  at  Three  Mile  Point  never  corrected 
them  after  the  precise  facts  had  been  published.  Many 
of  them  continued  to  repeat  the  original  statements  after 
they  must  have  known  them  to  be  untrue.  Nor  did 
they  stop  here.  As  the  British  press  had  in  his  case 
done  all  it  could  to  justify  the  charge  Cooper  made 
against  it  of  ferocious  blackguardism  of  personal  and  po 
litical  foes,  so  many  of  the  American  editors  seemed 
anxious  to  realize,  so  far  as  it  lay  in  their  power,  the 
picture  that  had  been  drawn  of  them  in  the  character  of 
Steadfast  Dodge.  Papers  containing  offensive  para 
graphs  about  Cooper  were  carefully  sent,  not  directed 
to  him  personally,  but  to  his  wife  and  daughters.  The 
fear  of  punishment  is  the  only  motive  by  which  those 
who  commit  acts  of  this  kind  can  possibly  be  influenced. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  an  idle  claim  that  the  character 
of  the  press  has  been  elevated  by  libel  suits  that  Cooper 
or  any  one  else  has  ever  brought.  Such  prosecutions 
may  be  both  justifiable  and  necessary ;  but  the  agencies 
that  form  and  build  up  intelligence  and  taste  and  high 
principle  are  not  of  this  negative  and  restraining  charac 
ter. 


CHAPTER  X. 

1839-1843. 

ON  the  10th  of  May,  1839,  appeared  Cooper's  "  His- 
tory  of  the  United  States  Navy."  The  work  was  one 
which  he  had  long  contemplated  writing.  As  far  back 
as  1825  there  were  newspaper  reports  that  he  had  the 
undertaking  in  mind.  He  himself,  in  his  parting  speech 
at  the  dinner  given  him  in  May,  1826,  just  before  his 
departure  for  Europe,  had  publicly  announced  his  de 
termination  of  devoting  himself  to  this  subject  during 
his  absence  abroad.  "  Encouraged  by  your  kindness," 
he  said,  "  I  will  take  this  opportunity  of  recording  the 
deeds  and  sufferings  of  a  class  of  men  to  which  this  na 
tion  owes  a  debt  of  lasting  gratitude  —  a  class  of  men 
among  whom,  I  am  always  ready  to  declare,  not  only 
the  earliest,  but  many  of  the  happiest  days  of  my  youth 
have  been  passed."  The  necessity  of  providing  for  his 
family  and  of  paying  off  debts  incurred  by  others,  but 
for  which  he  was  responsible,  had  prevented  the  imme 
diate  carrying  out  of  this  resolution.  But  it  had  always 
been  in  his  thoughts.  The  delay  in  the  preparation 
probably  added  to  the  value  of  the  history  ;  but  its  re 
ception  would  unquestionably  have  been  far  different 
had  it  been  brought  out  in  the  height  of  his  popularity. 

It  was  a  work  which  for  many  reasons  it  was  a  hard 
task  to  make  accurate,  and  a  still  harder  one  to  make 
interesting.  With  slight  exceptions  the  history  could 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  201 

be  little  more  than  a  record  of  detached  combats ;  and 
a  string  of  episodes,  no  matter  how  brilliant,  can  never 
have  the  attraction  which  belongs  to  unity  and  grand 
eur  of  movement.  These  last  can  alone  characterize 
the  operations  of  great  fleets. 

Still,  for  the  writing  of  this  history  Cooper  was  pe 
culiarly  fitted.  He  had  belonged  to  the  navy  in  his 
early  life.  He  had  never  ceased  to  feel  the  deepest  in 
terest  in  its  reputation  and  prosperity.  He  had  contrib 
uted  to  the  "  Naval  Magazine,"  a  periodical  published 
during  1836  and  1837,  a  series  of  papers  connected  with 
the  improvement  of  its  condition.  He  was,  moreover, 
on  terms  of  intimacy  with  many  of  the  officers  who  had 
won  for  it  distinction;  and  through  them  he  had  ac 
cess  to  sources  of  information  that  could  not  be  gained 
from  written  authorities.  He  had,  besides,  the  charac 
teristic  of  loving  truth  for  its  own  sake,  and  the  dispo 
sition  to  endure  any  amount  of  drudgery  and  encounter 
any  sort  of  toil  in  order  to  secure  it.  To  this  were 
added  the  special  qualifications  of  the  historical  eye, 
which  enabled  him  to  seize  the  important  facts  in  an  in 
finite  mass  of  detail,  and  the  power  of  describing  viv 
idly  what  he  saw  clearly.  Under  such  circumstances  it 
was  reasonable  to  expect  that  his  work  would  satisfy  all 
fair-thinking  men.  It  is,  perhaps,  correct  to  say  that  it 
did  so.  But  it  also  gave  rise  to  a  controversy  which 
stretched  over  a  longer  period  and  surpassed,  in  the 
bitter  feelings  it  aroused,  any  of  the  wars  in  which  the 
navy  itself  had  ever  been  engaged. 

There  were  special  difficulties  to  be  encountered  with 
readers  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean.  On  the  one  hand, 
Englishmen  had  usually  forgotten  to  remember  that  dur 
ing  the  war  of  1812  there  was  any  naval  combat  of  im- 


202  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

portance  fought  except  between  the  Shannon  and  the 
Chesapeake ;  and  even  at  this  day  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find  in  an  English  writer  any  account  of  the  naval 
operations  of  that  war  in  which  that  particular  engage 
ment  does  not  play  the  principal  part.  If  any  other 
was  forced  upon  their  attention  it  had  become  an  article 
of  their  creed  that  an  American  frigate  was  little  else 
than  a  line-of-battle  ship  disguised.  Moreover,  the  ef 
fective  force  of  the  American  vessel  was,  according  to 
their  theory,  made  up  of  deserters  from  the  British  ser 
vice.  These  two  explanations  of  any  failure  were  often 
combined.  It  is  in  this  way  Captain  Brenton,  one  of 
their  naval  historians,  calmly  shows  how  it  was  that  the 
Constitution  happened  to  capture  the  Guerriere.  "  We 
may  justly  say,"  he  concludes  his  account,  "it  was  a 
large  British  frigate  taking  a  small  one."  On  her  part 
America  was  not  to  be  outdone  in  her  estimate  of  na 
tional  prowess.  It  had  become  matter  of  firm  faith  with 
the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  that  their  side  had 
suffered  no  losses  worth  mentioning  during  the  war  of 
1812  ;  that  the  American  vessel  had  been  invariably 
successful,  whenever  there  was  any  approach  to  equal 
ity  of  force ;  and  that  in  every  case  it  was  the  superior 
seamanship,  courage,  and  skill  of  their  officers  and  men 
that  had  decided  the  result  in  their  favor,  and  not  supe 
riority  in  weight  of  metal. 

Neither  of  these  beliefs  was  of  a  kind  likely  to  in 
fluence  Cooper.  lie  had  got  to  that  point  of  feeling  in 
which  he  looked  upon  the  public  opinion  of  both  Eng 
land  and  America  with  a  good  deal  of  contempt.  It 
was  not  to  pamper  the  vanity  or  flatter  the  prejudices  of 
either  that  he  wrote,  but  to  state  the  truth.  For  this  he 
neglected  nothing  that  lay  in  his  power.  He  studied 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  203 

public  documents  of  every  kind,  official  reports,  all  the 
printed  and  manuscript  material  to  which  he  could  get 
access.  From  officers  of  the  navy  who  had  shared  in 
the  actions  described  he  gathered  much  information 
which  they  alone  were  able  to  communicate.  In  one 
sense  he  was  fully  satisfied  with  what  he  had  done.  He 
did  not  pretend  that  in  a  work  which  involved  the  ex 
amination  and  sifting  of  an  almost  infinite  number  of 
details  he  had  not  made  some  errors.  It  was  only  that 
he  had  made  none  intentionally,  and  that  he  had  put 
forth  his  most  strenuous  exertions  to  have  what  he 
wrote  entirely  free  from  mistake.  Nor  is  it  possible  for 
any  unprejudiced  mind  to  read  the  history  now  and  not 
feel  the  truth  of  the  assertion.  Its  accuracy  and  hon 
esty  have  sometimes  been  flippantly  questioned,  but  us 
ually  by  men  who  have  not  spent  as  many  days  in  the 
study  of  the  subject  as  Cooper  did  months.  During  his 
life-time  imputations  were  made  in  a  few  cases  upon  the 
correctness  of  his  statements.  They  met  then,  however, 
so  speedy  and  effectual  a  refutation  that  it  was  not 
thought  worth  while  to  repeat  the  criticisms  until  he 
was  in  his  grave.  Cooper  might  be  wrong  in  his  con 
clusions  ;  but  it  was  rarely  safe  to  quarrel  with  his  facts. 
There  is  more,  however,  in  this  history  than  freedom 
from  intentional  perversion  of  the  truth.  There  are 
throughout  the  whole  of  it  the  calmness,  the  judicial 
spirit,  the  absence  of  partisanship  which  may  not  of 
themselves  add  anything  to  the  interest  of  the  narrative, 
but  are  worth  everything  for  the  impression  of  truthful 
ness  it  makes. 

Impartiality  is  a  quality,  however,  little  apt  to  be 
commended  where  our  own  feelings  and  interests  are 
concerned.  Still,  the  general  fairness  of  the  work  was 


204  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

admitted  in  England,  with  the  qualification,  of  course 
that  a  perfectly  trustworthy  history  could  not  come 
from  this  side  of  the  water.  A  few  malignant  attacks 
were  made  upon  it.  One  of  these,  which  appeared  in 
the  "  United  Service  Journal "  for  November  and  De 
cember,  1839,  is  of  the  nature  of  a  prolonged  roar 
rather  than  a  criticism  ;  but  it  is  worth  noticing  for  the 
incidental  evidence  it  furnishes  of  the  intense  rancor 
felt  towards  Cooper  by  many  in  England  on  account  of 
his  strictures  upon  that  country  in  the  two  volumes  de 
voted  to  it  in  his  "  Gleanings  in  Europe."  The  writer 
made  the  then  usual  profession  of  faith,  that  the  work 
referred  to  had  been  completely  crushed  by  the  "  Quar 
terly  ; "  moreover,  that  the  novelist  had  been  convicted 
by  it  of  the  blackest  ingratitude  for  traducing  the  nation 
which,  we  learn  from  this  notice,  had  fostered  his  tal 
ents  for  romance.  No  critic  of  Cooper,  either  in  Europe 
or  in  this  country,  it  is  to  be  remarked  here,  ever 
seemed  willing  to  concede  that  the  author  had  any  hand 
in  gaining  his  own  reputation.  In  America  the  news 
papers  constantly  assured  him  that  it  was  due  entirely 
to  them.  Great  Britain  assumed  that  it  was  to  her  gen 
erous  appreciation  alone  that  he  was  known  in  either 
hemisphere.  The  European  main-land  was  not  behind 
the  island  in  this  feeling.  "  Undoubtedly,"  wrote  Bal 
zac,  "  Cooper's  renown  is  not  due  to  his  countrymen 
nor  to  the  English :  he  owes  it  mainly  to  the  ardent  ap 
preciation  of  France."  This  sentiment  of  the  novelist's 
obligation  to  Great  Britain  was  uppermost  in  the  heart 
of  the  reviewer  in  the  "United  Service  Journal."  An 
uneasy  impression,  however,  weighed  upon  his  mind  lest 
Cooper,  who  had  now  suffered  annihilation  several  times 
without  injury,  might  have  survived  the  particular  one 


TEE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  205 

inflicted  by  the  "  Quarterly."  He  honestly  confessed, 
therefore,  that  he  had  waited  some  mouths  before  criti 
cising  the  "  Naval  History,"  so  that  he  might  not  look 
at  it  with  a  jaundiced  or  malignant  eye  in  consequence 
of  his  recollections  of  the  previous  work  on  England. 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  take  any  further  notice  of 
this  article,  in  which  wretched  criticism  was  put  into  still 
poorer  English.  But  there  was  one  of  these  reviews  to 
which  Cooper  felt  it  incumbent  on  him  to  reply.  This 
appeared  in  the  "  Edinburgh  "  for  April,  1840.  It  was 
studiously  fair  in  tone.  It  commended  the  American 
author's  work  in  many  respects.  While  doing  so,  how 
ever,  it  attacked  him  for  having  made  no  use  of  the 
"  Naval  History  of  Great  Britain  "  by  William  James, 
a  history  which  it  spoke  of  in  a  gushing  way  as  ap 
proaching  "  as  nearly  to  perfection  in  its  own  line  as 
any  historical  work  perhaps  ever  did."  It  also  labored 
heavily  to  break  the  force  of  some  of  Cooper's  state 
ments  by  charging  him  with  making  assertions  without 
evidence  or  against  evidence.  James  was  a  veterinary 
surgeon  who  had  come  to  this  country  before  the  war 
of  1812  to  practice  his  profession.  After  the  breaking 
out  of  hostilities  he  left  it,  or  rather,  as  he  says,  "  es 
caped  from  it,  before  being  taken  prisoner  into  the  in 
terior  "  —  whatever  that  may  mean.  In  the  early  part 
of  "  the  steelyard  and  arithmetical  war,"  as  Cooper 
phrased  it,  which  has  raged  with  extreme  violence  ever 
since  the  peace  of  Ghent,  James  bore  a  gallant  and  con 
spicuous  part.  He  published  a  pnmphlet  on  the  subject, 
which,  in  1817,  came  out  expanded  into  a  volume.  In 
it  he  showed  conclusively  that  his  countrymen  had  been 
utterly  wrong  in  supposing  that  they  had  met  with  any 
naval  reverses  during  the  war  of  1812.  The  falsity  of 


206  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

this  assumption  he  satisfactorily  established  by  explaining 
that  the  Americans  were  the  most  inveterate  liars  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth.  By  their  deceptive  and  fraudu 
lent  accounts  they  had  beguiled  the  English,  a  self-dis 
trustful  and  self-depreciating  people,  into  believing  that 
they  had  been  defeated,  where  they  had  really  been  vic 
torious.  Heroes,  indeed,  can  be  overcome  by  sufficient 
odds  ;  and  James  was  always  prepared  with  ample  ex 
planations  to  account  for  failure  in  special  cases.  He 
also  convicted  the  officers  of  the  American  navy  not 
merely  of  lying  in  their  official  reports  —  which  was  a 
duty  expected  of  them  both  by  government  and  people 
—  but  of  cowardice  in  action,  of  misconduct  in  their  op 
erations,  and  of  brutality  toward  enemies  whom  the 
chance  of  war  threw  into  their  power.  A  work  like 
this  not  merely  filled  a  gap  in  historical  literature,  it 
supplied  a  national  want.  It  was  accordingly  received 
with  such  favor  that  its  author  went  on  to  produce  a 
history  of  the  British  navy  from  1793  to  the  accession 
of  George  IV.  In  this  he  embodied  his  previous  nar 
rative  ;  and  a  grateful  people  has  never  ceased  to  cher 
ish  a  work  which  showed  it  that  it  had  succeeded  where 
previously  it  had  been  laboring  under  the  impression 
that  it  had  failed. 

For  James  and  his  history  Cooper  had  unbounded 
contempt.  This  horse-doctor,  as  he  termed  him,  he 
looked  upon  as  being  as  well  fitted  to  describe  a  naval 
engagement  as  the  proverbial  horse-marine  would  be  to 
take  part  in  one.  Besides  being  incapable,  he  regarded 
him  as  eminently  dishonest;  as  vaunting  impartiality 
while  elevating  discreditable  and  improbable  hearsay 
into  positive  assertion,  and  fortifying  his  falsehoods  by 
a  pretentious  parade  of  figures  and  official  documents. 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  207 

It  is  hardly  going  too  far  to  say  that,  in  Cooper's  opinion, 
the  remarks  of  James  on  American  affairs  combined  all 
possible  forms  of  misstatement  from  undesigned  misrep 
resentation  to  deliberate  falsehood.  There  may  be  dif 
ference  of  opinion  on  this  point ;  on  another  there  can 
be  none.  The  period  covered  by  the  British  writer  is 
on  the  whole  the  most  glorious  in  the  long  and  brilliant 
naval  history  of  the  greatest  maritime  power  the  world 
has  ever  known.  Never  was  there  a  greater  contrast 
between  the  spirit  with  which  things  were  done  and  the 
spirit  with  which  they  were  told.  In  no  other  history 
known  to  man  does  tediousness  assume  proportions 
more  appalling,  do  figures  seem  more  juiceless,  do  the 
stories  of  heroic  achievement  furnish  less  inspiration 
than  in  this  of  James.  If  it  be  true,  as  some  modern 
writers  say,  that  history  to  be  of  value  must  be  void  of 
interest,  it  may  be  conceded  that  this  particular  work  is 
entitled  to  that  praise  of  perfection  accorded  it  by  the 
Edinburgh  Reviewer. 

The  judgment  that  held  up  such  a  history  as  a  model 
was  not  likely  to  impress  a  man,  who  was  still  under 
the  sway  of  the  old-fashioned  notion,  that  there  was  no 
absolutely  necessary  connection  between  dullness  and 
accuracy.  To  this  particular  criticism  Cooper  replied 
in  the  "  Democratic  Review  "  for  May  and  June,  1842. 
In  the  first  article  he  exposed  the  ignorance  and  dishon 
esty  of  James.  In  the  second  he  devoted  himself  to  the 
assertions  of  the  "  Edinburgh."  The  game  was  hardly 
worth  the  candle.  His  arguments  could  not  reach  the 
men  who  alone  needed  to  know  them.  In  international 
quarrels  of  any  kind  there  are  few  who  read  both  sides. 
The  feeling  exists  that  it  is  not  safe  to  contaminate  the 
purity  of  one's  faith  in  his  country  by  the  doubts  that 


208  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

might  arise  from  merely  fancying  that' an  opponent  has 
reasons  for  his  course  worth  considering.  So  it  was  in 
this  case.  Few  people  in  the  United  States  saw  the 
"  Edinburgh  Review,"  none  believed  what  it  said.  In 
England  fewer  knew  even  of  the  existence  of  the 
"  Democratic  Review." 

The  controversy  that  arose  in  this  country  was  on  an 
entirely  different  ground.  It  was  one  that  could  hardly 
have  been  foreseen.  The  personal  hostility  which 
Cooper  had  succeeded  in  drawing  upon  himself  was 
never  so  conspicuously  shown  as  in  the  treatment  which 
his  "Naval  History"  underwent.  At  first,  indeed,  it 
was  received  with  general  favor,  though  by  many  it  was 
thought  to  give  too  much  credit  to  the  English.  In  a 
short  time,  however,  attacks  were  made  upon  it  so  vir 
ulent,  so  causeless,  and  withal  so  simultaneous,  that  the 
mere  fact  would  of  itself  afford  reason  for  the  suspic 
ion  that  they  were  concerted.  This  was  practically  the 
case.  A  certain  amount  of  preliminary  detail  will  make 
the  circumstances  clear.  The  controversy  was  entirely 
about  the  account  of  a  particular  action  in  the  war  of 
1812,  and  a  work  containing  over  fifty  chapters  was  ab 
solutely  condemned  as  partisan  and  worthless  for  what 
was  found  on  a  few  pages  of  one  chapter. 

The  battle  of  Lake  Erie  was  fought  and  won  by 
Commodore  Perry  on  the  10th  of  September,  1813.  It 
presented  the  peculiarity  that  the  Lawrence,  the  flag 
ship  of  the  victorious  squadron,  had  struck  to  the  enemy 
in  the  course  of  the  engagement.  There  was  a  feeling 
prevalent  among  many  at  the  time  that  Elliott,  the  sec 
ond  in  rank,  had  not  been  cordial  in  his  support  of  his 
commander,  and  had  left  him  to  bear  for  a  long  while 
the  brunt  of  the  fight  without  hastening  in  his  vessel, 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  209 

the  Niagara,  to  ills  help.  This  was,  in  particular,  the 
general  belief  among  those  on  board  the  Lawrence. 
Perry  did  not  sanction  this  view  at  first.  Urged  by 
good-nature,  according  to  the  theory  of  his  friends,  he 
praised  Elliott's  conduct  iti  his  official  report.  He  went 
even  farther  in  a  letter  of  the  19th  of  September.  This 
was  in  reply  to  a  note  from  Elliott  stating  that  rumors 
were  current  that  the  Lawrence  had  been  sacrificed  be 
cause  of  the  lack  of  proper  exertion  on  the  part  of  the 
second  in  command.  "  I  am  indignant,"  wrote  Perry, 
"  that  any  report  should  be  in  circulation  prejudicial  to 
your  character  as  respects  the  action  of  the  10th  instant. 
It  affords  me  pleasure  that  I  have  it  in  my  power  to  as 
sure  you  that  the  conduct  of  yourself,  officers,  and  crew 
was  such  as  to  merit  my  warmest  approbation.  And  I 
consider  the  circumstance  of  your  volunteering  and 
bringing  the  smaller  vessels  up  to  close  action  as  con 
tributing  largely  to  our  victory."  Such  was  the  situa 
tion  at  the  time.  A  few  years  later,  however,  a  bitter 
quarrel  sprang  up  between  Perry  and  Elliott,  which  ap 
parently  owed  a  good  deal  of  its  rancor  to  the  exertions 
of  good-natured  friends  of  both  in  communicating  to 
each  remarks  made,  or  supposed  to  be  made,  by  the 
other.  An  envenomed  correspondence  took  place  in 
1818.  It  led  to  Elliott's  challenging  Perry,  and  Perry 
preferring  charges  against  Elliott  for  his  conduct  at  the 
battle  of  Lake  Erie.  In  the  letter  accompanying  the 
charges  he  gave  as  his  reason  for  changing  his  opinion 
as  to  the  behavior  of  his  second  in  command,  that  he 
had  been  put  into  possession  of  fresh  facts.  The  gov 
ernment  took  no  action  in  the  matter,  and  in  the  follow 
ing  year  Perry  died.  In  1834  Elliott  became  the  mark 
of  hostility  of  the  Whig  press  on  account  of  his  putting 


210  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE  COOPER. 

the  figure  of  Andrew  Jackson  at  the  figure-head  of  the 
Constitution,  the  war-ship  of  which  he  was  in  command. 
The  old  scandal  about  his  conduct  at  Erie  was  revived. 
Elliott  did  more  than  defend  himself.  A  life  of  him 
was  published  in  1835,  written  by  another,  but  from 
materials  evidently  that  he  himself  had  furnished.  It 
claimed  that  the  success  of  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie  was 
mainly  due  to  his  efforts.  It  naturally  produced  a  feel 
ing  of  intense  bitterness  among  Perry's  friends  and  rel 
atives.  This  was  the  way  matters  stood  at  the  time  that 
'the  "  Naval  History  "  was  brought  out. 

Cooper  entered  upon  the  account  of  the  battle  of 
Lake  Erie  with  the  common  prejudice  against  Elliott. 
Nor  were  efforts  Backing  to  keep  it  alive  and  strengthen 
it,  when  it  was  reported  in  naval  circles  that  he  had  be 
gun  to  be  uncertain  about  the  justice  of  his  original  im 
pressions.  Captain  Matthew  Perry,  the  brother  of  the 
Commodore,  forwarded  him  all  the  sworn  documentary 
evidence  that  made  against  Elliott.  He  neglected  to 
send  any  that  was  given  in  his  favor.  Cooper  was  not 
the  man  to  be  satisfied  with  this  way  of  writing  history. 
As  he  examined  the  subject  more  and  more,  he  was 
struck  by  the  conflicting  character  of  the  testimony, 
and  the  doubt  that  overhung  the  whole  question.  He 
came  finally  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  not  a  matter 
he  could  settle,  or,  perhaps,  any  one.  He  accordingly 
contented  himself  with  giving  as  accurate  an  account  of 
the  battle  of  Lake  Erie  as  he  could  without  entering  at 
all  into  the  details  of  the  controversy.  He  made  not 
the  slightest  effort  to  detract  from  the  praise  due  to 
Perry,  and,  indeed,  paid  the  highest  tribute  to  his  skill 
and  conduct.  Nor  did  he  give  to  Elliott  any  prominence 
whatever. 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  211 

He  had  committed,  however,  the  unpardonable  sin. 
He  had  refused  to  attack  Elliott.  He  had  preferred  to 
accept  Perry's  original  account  of  the  battle,  written 
within  five  days  after  it  had  taken  place,  to  the  view  he 
took  of  it  not  only  five  years  later,  but  also  after  a  bit 
ter  personal  quarrel  had  sprung  up  between  him  and  his 
former  second  in  command.  While  Cooper  had  made  no 
special  mention  of  the  latter,  he  had  spoken  of  him  re 
spectfully.  There  was  a  general  feeling  that  Elliott 
ought  to  have  been  attacked.  He  was  a  very  unpopu 
lar  man,  and,  perhaps,  deservedly  so  ;  while  Perry  was 
both  a  popular  favorite  and  a  popular  hero.  The  re 
fusal  of  Cooper  to  join  in  the  general  denunciation 
brought  down  upon  him,  not  only  those  who  honestly 
believed  him  in  the  wrong,  but  the  whole  horde  of  his 
own  personal  enemies  wrho  knew  little  and  cared  less 
about  this  particular  subject.  In  the  long  list  of  con 
troversies  which  the  student  of  literature  is  under  the 
necessity  of  examining,  none  seems  so  uncalled  for  and 
so  discreditable  to  the  assailants  as  this.  For  it  is  to  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  historian  had  not  made  the  slight 
est  attempt  to  injure  Perry  in  the  popular  estimation,  or 
to  elevate  the  subordinate  at  the  expense  of  the  com 
mander.  Yet  assertions  of  this  kind  were  constantly 
bandied  about,  though  it  would  not  have  taken  five  min 
utes'  reading  of  the  work  to  have  shown  their  falsity. 
Cooper  was  frequently  spoken  of  by  the  press  as  the 
detractor  of  American  fame  and  the  slanderer  of  Amer 
ican  character,  because  he  refused  to  say,  on  one-sided 
evidence,  that  an  officer  of  the  United  States  navy  had 
been  willing  to  sacrifice  his  superior  in  a  hotly  contested 
battle  and  imperil  the  result  for  the  sake  of  ministering 
to  his  own  personal  ambition,  or  of  gratifying  a  feeling 


212  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE   COOPER. 

of  personal  dislike  and  envy,  of  the  existence  of  which 
at  the  time  there  was  no  proof. 

Space  here  exists  to  notice  only  the  elaborate  attacks 
to  which  Cooper  himself  felt  constrained  to  reply.  The 
first  of  these  appeared  in  four  numbers  of  the  "  New 
York  Commercial  Advertiser  "  during  June,  1839.  The 
articles  were  written  by  William  A.  Duer,  who  had  lately 
been  president  of  Columbia  College.  They  purported 
to  be  a  review  of  the  "  Naval  History,"  but  nothing 
whatever  was  said  about  that  work  beyond  the  few 
pages  in  which  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie  is  described. 
They  were,  moreover,  so  personal  in  their  nature  and 
contained  imputations  so  gross  on  his  character,  that 
Cooper  began  a  libel  suit  against  the  journal  in  which 
they  were  published.  This  finally  resulted  in  one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  trials  that  has  ever  been  recorded  in 
merely  literary  annals.  The  attack  in  the  "  Commercial 
Advertiser "  was  followed  by  a  similar  one  in  the 
11  North  American  Review."  This  was  written,  how 
ever,  with  more  decency,  though  it  again  devoted  itself 
mainly  to  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie.  It  was  the  work  of 
Alexander  Slidell  Mackenzie,  a  naval  author,  who  by 
three  books  of  travel  had  gained  at  the  time  some  liter 
ary  notoriety.  But  the  notoriety  never  rose  to  reputa 
tion  ;  and  the  history  which  preserves  his  name  at  all, 
preserves  it  in  connection  with  an  event  it  were  well  for 
his  memory  to  have  eternally  forgotten.  It  is  to  be 
added  that  he  was  the  brother-in-law  of  Captain  Mat 
thew  Perry,  and  that  Duer  was  his  uncle.  Hardly  had 
his  broadside  been  delivered,  when  another  attack  ap 
peared.  The  victor  of  Lake  Erie  had  come  from  Rhode 
Island,  arid  Rhode  Island  rushed  to  the  fray,  not  to  de 
fend  her  son  —  for  he  had  not  been  attacked  —  but  to 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  213 

build  up  his  reputation  by  ruining  that  of  his  enemy. 
Tristam  Burges,  when  the  biography  of  Elliott,  already 
referred  to,  had  appeared,  had  delivered  a  lecture  on  the 
battle  of  Lake  Erie  before  the  Rhode  Island  Historical 
Society.  It  was  not  printed  at  the  time  ;  but  no  sooner 
was  Cooper's  work  published  than,  at  the  request  of 
Perry's  friends  and  relatives,  it  was  brought  out  with 
documents  appended.  The  lecture  reads  very  much 
like  a  stump  speech  of  the  extreme  florid  type.  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  in  it  Elliott  got  his  full  deserts  for 
betraying  his  commander.  It  made  no  direct  reference 
to  Cooper,  but  the  whole  object  was  to  discredit  the 
account  of  the  battle  which  he  had  given. 

Even  this  was  not  all.  Mackenzie  prepared  a  life  of 
Perry,  which  was  published  early  in  1841.  In  it  he  at 
tacked  Elliott  with  great  bitterness,  and  was  careful  to 
give  in  an  appendix  all  the  sworn  testimony  on  one  side, 
and  leave  out  all  the  sworn  testimony  on  the  other. 
The  biography  met  with  general  favor.  It  was  styled 
a  noble  work,  and  the  courage  manifested  by  the  author 
in  assailing  an  unpopular  man  and  celebrating  a  popular 
hero  was,  for  some  reason  hard  now  to  be  understood, 
highly  commended  on  all  sides.  The  intense  partisan 
ship  of  the  biography  can  be  read  on  almost  every  page. 
But  it  was  warmly  welcomed  everywhere,  for  Elliott 
had  few  friends  even  in  his  own  profession.  The 
"North  American  Review"  for  July,  1841,  in  an  arti 
cle  written  by  the  late  Admiral  Charles  H.  Davis, 
congratulated  the  navy  on  now  having  a  work  which 
gave  a  true  and  faithful  report  of  the  battle  of  Lake 
Erie,  and  stigmatized  Cooper's  account  as  false  in  spirit, 
statement,  and  comment. 

This  was,  indeed,  the  general  charge.     For  a  while 


214  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

Cooper  was  under  as  heavy  a  bombardment  as  Perry 
himself  had  been  in  his  flag-ship.  That  his  feelings 
were  outraged  by  the  injustice  of  it  there  can  be  no  ques 
tion,  but  it  never  daunted  his  spirit.  Yet  he  took  not 
the  slightest  step  without  being  sure  of  his  ground. 
He  went  over  the  evidence  again  and  again.  He  talked 
with  officers  of  the  navy  who  held  views  opposed  to  his 
own  ;  though  he  said  afterward  he  rarely  found  that 
they  knew  anything  about  the  matter  beyond  common 
report.  With  the  exception  of  a  few  newspaper  arti 
cles,  however,  he  published  nothing  directly  in  reply 
until  four  years  after  his  history  was  published.  In  the 
mean  while  he  pressed  the  suit  against  William  L.  Stone, 
the  editor  of  the  "  Commercial  Advertiser."  That  paper 
at  first  took  the  prosecution  in  the  jocular  and  insolent 
way  then  common  with  the  press.  Under  an  announce 
ment  of  "  Stand  Clear,"  it  informed  its  readers  early  in 
August,  1839,  that  "  the  interesting  Mr.  J.  Effingham 
Fenimore  Cooper  is  to  bring  a  libel  suit  against  us. 
None  will  approach  it  in  interest,  importance,  or  amuse 
ment."  The  editor  was  telling  more  truth  than  he 
thought.  No  action,  however,  was  taken  by  Cooper  for 
nearly  a  year  to  carry  out  his  expressed  intention.  But 
he  could  always  be  depended  upon.  His  suits,  though 
sometimes  long  in  coming,  were  sure  to  come  at  last. 
Great  was  the  surprise  of  the  editor  when,  in  May,  1840, 
a  process  was  served  upon  him  for  a  libel  printed  eleven 
months  before.  He  was  indignant  that  the  prosecutor 
had  waited  so  long.  A  demurrer  was  filed  and  argued 
in  July,  1840,  at  the  Utica  term  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
The  decision  was  against  the  defendant.  Things  now 
began  to  look  more  serious ;  for  while  the  importance  of 
the  suit  was  increasing,  its  amusement  was  diminishing. 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  215 

It,  however,  hung  on  in  the  courts  for  a  year  and  a  half 
longer.  The  defendant  was  naturally  unwilling  to 
hasten  a  trial  which  was  almost  certain  to  end  in  an  ad 
verse  verdict.  Negotiations  between  the  parties  in  the 
autumn  of  1841  resulted  in  a  novel  agreement.  Cooper 
did  not  care  for  damages.  It  was  not  money  he  sought ; 
it  was  to  vindicate  the  truth  of  his  history  and  his  char 
acter  as  an  historian.  When,  therefore,  his  adversary 
suggested  that  an  ordinary  jury  of  twelve  men  could  not 
well  pass  upon  a  question  involving  the  value  of  con 
flict  ing  evidence,  and  minute  technical  detail,  he  seized 
upon  the  occasion  to  arrange  that  it  should  be  tried  be 
fore  a  body  of  referees,  consisting  of  three  distinguished 
lawyers.  The  proposal  was  accepted.  Never  was  the 
eternal  question  between  author  and  reviewer  settled  in 
a  more  singular  and  a  more  thorough  way.  For  the  ref 
erees  were  to  decide,  not  merely  upon  legal  points,  but 
upon  moral  ones.  They  were  to  decide  whether  the  au 
thor  had  written  a  truthful  account  of  the  battle  of 
Lake  Erie,  and  whether  he  had  written  it  in  a  spirit  of 
truth.  On  the  other  hand,  they  were  to  decide  whether 
the  reviewer  had  written  matter  libelous  enough  to  jus 
tify  a  verdict  from  a  jury,  and  whether  in  the  treatment 
of  the  subject  for  which  he  criticised  the  history  he  had 
been  just  and  impartial.  If  the  decision  were  in  favor 
of  the  author  the  defendant  was  not  to  pay  more  than 
two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  besides  the  costs.  In  any 
case  the  beaten  party  was  to  publish  the  full  text  of  the 
decision,  at  his  own  expense,  in  the  cities  of  New  York, 
Albany,  and  Washington.  The  referees  agreed  upon 
were  Samuel  Steevens,  named  by  Cooper ;  Daniel  Lord, 
Jr.,  named  by  Stone ;  and  Samuel  A.  Foot,  chosen  by 
mutual  consent.  The  attendance  of  many  witnesses  was 


216  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

rendered  unnecessary  by  the  stipulation  that  a  vast 
mass  of  documentary  testimony  in  possession  of  Cooper 
should  be  taken  in  evidence. 

The  referees  met  in  the  United  States  court  room  in 
New  York  city,  on  the  afternoon  of  Monday,  May  10, 
1842.  A  large  crowd  was  in  attendance.  Public  in 
terest  had  been  aroused,  not  only  by  the  question  in 
volved  and  the  novel  character  of  the  suit,  but  by  the 
fact  that  the  historian  was  to  assume  the  principal  con 
duct  of  his  own  side.  The  trial  lasted  for  five  days. 
After  the  opening  speeches  had  been  made,  the  taking 
of  oral  testimony  began.  Among  the  witnesses  for  the 
defense  were  Sands,  Mackenzie,  and  Paulding,  all  offi 
cers  of  the  navy.  They  were  examined  in  reference  to 
Cooper's  account  of  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie  and  the 
diagrams  by  which  he  represented  the  positions  of  the 
vessels  during  the  engagement.  Their  views  were  in 
all  respects  opposed  to  the  theory  of  operations  which 
he  had  assumed.  After  the  taking  of  the  oral  testimony 
was  ended  and  certain  legal  questions  had  been  argued, 
the  summing  up  was  begun  by  William  W.  Campbell  of 
Otsego,  the  leading  lawyer  for  the  defense.  His  speech 
was  exceedingly  able  and  effective.  Men  who  were 
present  at  the  proceedings  asserted,  when  it  was  fin 
ished,  that  there  was  no  possible  way  in  which  its  rea 
soning  could  be  shaken,  still  less  overthrown.  At  eight 
o'clock  on  Thursday  evening  Cooper  began  summing  up 
for  the  prosecution,  and  continued  until  ten.  On  Fri 
day  he  resumed  his  argument  at  four  in  the  afternoon, 
and  six  hours  had  passed  before  he  concluded.  His 
conduct  of  the  case  from  the  beginning  had  excited  sur 
prise  and  admiration.  Friends  and  foes  alike  bore  wit 
ness  to  the  signal  ability  he  had  displayed  throughout; 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  217 

but  his  closing  speech  made  an  especially  profound  im 
pression.  Its  interest,  its  ingenuity,  and  its  effective 
ness  were  conceded  by  the  defendant  himself.  It  was 
for  a  long  time  after  spoken  of  as  one  of  the  finest  fo 
rensic  displays  that  had  ever  been  witnessed  at  the  New 
York  bar.  Among  those  present  at  the  trial  was  Henry 
T.  Tuckerman,  who  has  left  us  an  account  of  the  cir 
cumstances  and  of  the  bearing  of  the  man.  "  A  more 
unpopular  cause,"  he  wrote,  *'  never  fell  to  the  lot  of  a 
practiced  advocate  ;  for  the  hero  of  Lake  Erie  was  and 
had  long  been  one  of  the  most  cherished  of  American 
victors.  We  could  not  but  admire  the  self-possession, 
coolness,  and  vigor  with  which  the  author,  on  this  occa 
sion,  played  the  lawyer.  Almost  alone  in  his  opinion, 
—  the  tide  of  public  sentiment  against  his  theory  of  the 
battle,  and  the  popular  sympathy  wholly  with  the  re 
ceived  traditions  of  that  memorable  day,  —  he  stood  col 
lected,  dignified,  uncompromising  ;  examined  witnesses, 
quoted  authorities,  argued  nautical  and  naval  precedents 
with  a  force  and  a  facility  which  would  have  done  credit 
to  an  experienced  barrister.  On  the  one  hand,  his 
speech  was  a  remarkable  exhibition  of  self-esteem,  and 
on  the  other,  a  most  interesting  professional  argument ; 
for  when  he  described  the  battle,  and  illustrated  his 
views  by  diagrams,  it  was  like  a  chapter  in  one  of  his 
own  sea-stories,  so  minute,  graphic,  and  spirited  was  the 
picture  he  drew.  The  dogmatism  was  more  than  com 
pensated  for  by  the  picturesqueness  of  the  scene  ;  his 
self-complacency  was  exceeded  by  his  wonderful  ability. 
He  quoted  Cooper's  '  Naval  History '  as  if  it  were 
*  Blackstone ; '  he  indulged  in  reminiscences ;  he  made 
digressions  and  told  anecdotes  ;  he  spoke  of  the  manoeu 
vres  of  the  vessels,  of  the  shifting  of  the  wind,  of  the 


218  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

course  of  the  fight,  like  one  whose  life  had  been  passed 
on  the  quarter-deck.  No  greater  evidence  of  self-re 
liance,  of  indifference  to  the  opinion  of  the  world,  and 
to  that  of  his  countrymen  in  particular,  of  the  rarest  de 
scriptive  talent,  of  pertinacity,  loyalty  to  personal  con 
viction,  and  a  manly,  firm,  yet  not  unkindly  spirit,  could 
be  imagined  than  the  position  thus  assumed,  and  the 
manner  in  which  he  met  the  exigency.  As  we  gazed 
and  listened,  we  understood  clearly  why,  as  a  man, 
Cooper  had  been  viewed  from  such  extremes  of  preju 
dice  and  partiality  ;  we  recognized  at  once  the  generosity 
and  courage,  and  the  willfulness  and  pride  of  his  charac 
ter  :  but  the  effect  was  to  inspire  a  respect  for  the  man, 
such  as  authors  whose  errors  are  moral  weaknesses 
never  excite." 

On  the  16th  of  June  the  referees  rendered  their  de 
cision  on  the  eight  points  submitted  to  them  for  adjudi 
cation.  In  regard  to  five  of  these  they  were  all  in  full 
agreement ;  but  in  three  instances  one  of  the  referees 
dissented  from  certain  portions  of  the  report  made  by 
the  other  two. 

The  first  point  was  whether,  according  to  the  evi 
dence  and  the  rules  of  the  law  the  plaintiff  would  be 
entitled  to  the  verdict  of  a  jury  in  an  ordinary  suit  for 
libel.  They  agreed  that  he  would,  and  accordingly 
awarded  the  damages  that  had  been  fixed  by  the  orig 
inal  stipulation. 

The  second  point  was  whether  in  writing  his  account 
of  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie,  Cooper  had  faithfully  ful 
filled  his  obligations  as  an  historian.  The  majority  of 
the  referees  decided  that  he  had  so  done.  Mr.  Foot  dis 
sented  to  this  extent,  that  Cooper  had  intended  to  do  so, 
but  that  from  error  of  judgment  or  from  some  cause 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  219 

not  impugning  the  purity  of  his  motives,  he  had  failed 
in  one  specified  point.  This  was  that  the  narrative 
gave  the  impression  that  Elliott's  conduct  in  the  battle 
had  met  with  universal  approbation,  which  it  had  not. 
The  arbitrator  added,  however,  that  this  was  the  only 
particular  in  which  it  appeared  to  him  that  the  historian 
had  failed  in  fulfilling  the  high  trust  he  had  taken  upon 
himself. 

The  third  point  was  whether  the  narrative  of  the  bat 
tle  of  Lake  Erie  was  true  or  not  in  its  essential  facts, 
and  if  untrue,  in  what  particulars.  The  majority  de 
cided  that  it  was  true.  Mr.  Foot  dissented  on  the  same 
point,  to  the  same  extent,  and  for  the  same  reason,  for 
which  he  had  dissented  from  the  second. 

The  fourth  point  was  whether  the  account  of  the  bat 
tle  was  written  in  a  spirit  of  impartiality  and  justice. 
They  all  agreed  that  it  was  so  written. 

The  fifth  point  was  whether  the  writer  of  the  criti 
cism,  upon  which  the  suit  was  founded,  had  faithfully 
fulfilled  the  office  of  a  reviewer.  If  not  they  were  to 
give  the  facts  upon  which  their  conclusion  was  based. 
They  unanimously  agreed  that  the  writer  had  not  faith 
fully  discharged  his  obligations  as  a  reviewer ;  that  he 
had  indulged  in  personal  imputations ;  that  he  was 
guilty  of  misquotations  which  materially  changed  the 
meaning ;  that  his  statements  were  incorrect  in  several 
particulars  ;  and  that  his  charge  that  Cooper  had  given 
to  Elliott  equal  credit  with  Perry  in  the  conduct  of  the 
battle  was  untrue.  This  last  assertion,  they  add,  was 
made  after  a  careful  examination  by  them  of  the  history 
itself. 

The  sixth  point  was  whether  the  review  was  true  or 
not  in  its  essential  facts ;  and  if  untrue,  in  what  particu- 


220  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

lars.     They  all  agreed  that  it  was  untrue,  and  gave  the 
particulars. 

The  seventh  point  was  whether  the  review  was  writ 
ten  in  a  spirit  of  impartiality  and  justice.  The  majority 
decided  that  it  was  not  so  written.  Here  again  Mr. 
Foot  made  a  partial  dissent.  He  considered  the  re 
view  to  have  been  written  under  the  influence  of  a 
wakeful  sensibility,  inconsiderately  and  unnecessarily 
aroused  in  defense  of  the  reputation  of  a  beloved  and 
deceased  friend. 

The  eighth  point  was  to  settle  which  of  the  two  par 
ties  should  be  required  to  publish  the  full  text  of  the 
decision  at  his  own  expense  in  newspapers  published  in 
New  York,  Washington,  and  Albany.  The  referees 
agreed  that  this  was  to  be  done  by  the  defendant. 

Thus  ended  this  suit.  For  Cooper  the  result  was  a 
great  personal  triumph.  He  had  had  to  contend  with 
the  prejudices  of  a  nation.  For  months  and  years  he 
had  been  persistently  assailed  with  all  the  weapons  that 
unscrupulous  partisanship  or  unreasoning  family  affec 
tion  could  wield.  He  had  been  compelled  to  identify 
his  own  cause  with  that  of  a  man  who,  in  addition  to 
unpopularity  with  members  of  his  own  profession,  had 
drawn  upon  himself  the  hostility  of  a  political  party.  He 
had  been  under  the  necessity  of  controverting,  in  some 
particulars,  a  generally  accepted  belief.  Against  him 
had  been  arrayed  two  of  the  ablest  lawyers  of  the  bar. 
Naval  officers  of  reputation  had  on  the  witness  stand 
criticised  his  theory  of  the  battle  and  contradicted  his 
statements.  He  had  been  assisted  in  the  conduct  of  the 
case  by  his  nephew  ;  but  outside  of  this  he  had  received 
help  from  no  one.  Sympathy  with  him,  there  was  lit 
tle  ;  desire  for  his  success,  there  was  less ;  and  the  ref- 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  221 

erees  could  hardly  fail  to  feel  to  some  extent  the  influ 
ence  that  pervaded  the  whole  country.  In  the  face  of 
all  these  odds  he  had  fought  the  battle  and  won  it.  He 
had  wrung  respect  and  admiration  from  a  hostile  public 
sentiment  which  he  had  openly  and  contemptuously  de 
fied.  Upon  the  essential  matters  in  dispute  the  verdict 
of  three  men,  of  highest  rank  in  their  profession  and 
skilled  in  the  weighing  of  conflicting  evidence,  had  been 
entirely  in  his  favor. 

Cooper  followed  up  his  victory  by  a  pamphlet  which 
appeared  in  August,  1843,  entitled,  "  The  Battle  of 
Lake  Erie :  or,  Answers  to  Messrs.  Burges,  Duer,  and 
Mackenzie."  In  this  he  went  fully  over  the  ground. 
No  reply  was  made  to  it ;  there  was  in  fact  none  to 
be  made.  The  popular  tradition  could  best  be  main 
tained  by  silence.  Silence  at  any  rate  during  his  life 
time  was  preserved,  and  silence  in  cases  where  it  would 
have  been  creditable  to  have  said  something.  It  cer 
tainly  affords  justification  additional  to  that  already 
given,  for  the  contemptuous  opinion  expressed  by 
Cooper  of  the  American  press,  that  the  newspapers 
which  had  been  loudest  in  the  denunciation  of  his  his 
tory,  never  so  much  as  alluded  to  the  result  of  the  trial 
brought  to  test  authoritatively  the  fairness  and  impartial 
ity  of  the  narrative  for  which  he  had  been  condemned. 

After  reading  patiently  all  that  has  been  written  on 
both  sides  of  this  question,  it  seems  to  me  that  not  only 
was  the  verdict  of  the  arbitrators  a  just  one,  but  that 
Cooper  was  right  in  the  view  he  took.  Still,  where 
evidence  is  conflicting  there  is  ample  room  for  difference 
of  opinion  ;  and  in  regard  to  the  conduct  of  Elliott  at 
Lake  Erie  the  evidence  is  diametrically  opposed.  The 
only  secure  method,  therefore,  of  obtaining  and  main- 


222  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE  COOPER. 

taming  a  comfortable  bigotry  of  belief  on  the  subject  is 
to  read  carefully  the  testimony  on  one  side  and  to  de 
spise  the  other  so  thoroughly  as  to  refrain  from  even 
looking  at  it.  This  was  then  and  has  since  been  the 
course  followed  by  the  thick  and  thin  partisans  of 
Perry.  But  whether  the  conclusion  be  right  or  not  at 
which  Cooper  arrived,  there  was  never  the  slightest  jus 
tification  for  the  gross  abuse  to  which  he  was  subjected. 
He  had  everything  to  gain  by  falling  in  with  the  popu 
lar  tradition  and  attacking  Elliott.  Nothing  but  lofty 
integrity  and  love  of  truth  could  have  made  him  take 
the  course  he  did.  If  a  mistake  at  all,  it  was  a  mistake 
of  judgment.  But  the  charges  brought  against  him 
were  based  in  most  instances  upon  deliberate  misrepre 
sentation  of  what  he  had  said.  This  was  especially  true 
of  the  criticisms  of  Duer  and  Mackenzie.  The  per 
version  of  meaning  of  one  of  his  foot-notes  is  a  striking 
instance  of  the  unscrupulous  nature  of  these  attacks. 
In  this  Cooper  had  spoken  of  the  vulgar  opinion  which 
celebrated  as  an  act  of  special  gallantry  Perry's  passing 
in  an  open  boat  from  one  ship  to  another  as  being  the 
very  least  of  his  merits ;  that  the  same  thing  was  done  in 
the  same  engagement  by  others,  including  Elliott ;  that 
there  was  personal  risk  everywhere  ;  and  that  Perry's 
real  merit  was  his  indomitable  resolution  not  to  be  con 
quered,  and  the  manner  in  which  he  sought  new  modes 
of  victory  when  old  ones  failed.  If  this  be  deprecia 
tory,  it  is  depreciatory  to  say  that  greater  honor  is  due 
to  him  who  manifests  the  skill  and  fertility  of  resource 
of  a  commander  than  to  him  who  exhibits  the  mere 
valor  of  a  soldier.  But  in  Duer's  review  of  the  "  Naval 
History,"  and  Mackenzie's  "  Life  of  Perry,"  the  pur 
port  of  the  note  was  entirely  changed.  The  concluding 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  223 

portion  was  dishonestly  omitted,  and  a  paragraph  that 
gave  to  the  victor  of  Lake  Erie  credit  for  generalship 
rather  than  soldiership  was  converted  into  an  assertion 
that  the  risk  he  had  run  was  of  slight  consequence. 

This  controversy  brought  in  its  train  another  libel 
suit.  To  the  editor  of  the  "  Commercial  Advertiser  " 
the  result  had  caused  deep  mortification.  The  reviewer 
also  was  naturally  dissatisfied  with  a  decision  which  left 
upon  him  the  stigma  of  a  libeler.  He  offered,  if  the 
case  could  be  brought  before  a  common  jury  for  another 
trial,  to  pay  double  the  amount  of  damages  awarded, 
provided  the  result  was  against  him.  With  such  an  ar 
rangement  Mr.  Stone  declined  to  have  anything  to  do. 
He  had  had,  he  said,  annoyance  enough  already  with 
the  suit.  But  he  was  tempted  in  a  moment  of  vexation 
to  indulge  in  remarks  which  implied  that  Cooper  was  in 
a  hurry  to  get  the  sum  awarded,  with  the  object  of  put 
ting  it  into  Wall  Street  "  for  shaving  purposes."  The 
insinuation  was  uncalled  for  and  unjustifiable;  and  as 
the  editor  subsequently  admitted  that  it  was  only  made 
in  jest,  it  may  be  imputed  to  his  credit  that  he  had  the 
grace  to  be  ashamed  of  it.  A  libel  suit,  however,  fol 
lowed.  It  was  at  first  decided  in  Cooper's  favor.  It 
was  then  carried  up  to  the  Court  of  Errors,  and  in  De 
cember,  1845,  more  than  a  year  after  Mr.  Stone's  death, 
that  tribunal  reversed  the  decision.  The  result  of  the 
trial  was  hailed  with  the  keenest  delight  by  the  Whig 
press  of  the  state.  "  The  Great  Persecutor,"  as  he  was 
sometimes  styled,  had  been  finally  foiled.  "  The  rights 
of  the  press,"  said  one  of  the  newspapers,  "  are  at  last 
triumphant  over  the  tyranny  of  courts  and  the  vile  con 
structions  of  the  law  of  libel."  The  value  of  the  vic 
tory,  however,  was  largely  lessened  by  the  little  respect 


224  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

in  which  the  Court  of  Errors  was  held.  This  tribunal, 
which  consisted  in  the  majority  of  cases  of  the  Chan 
cellor  and  of  the  members  of  the  state  Senate,  was 
swept  away  by  the  Constitution  of  1846.  Its  influence 
had  gone  long  before.  Cooper  was  doubtless  giving 
expression  to  the  general  feeling  as  well  as  venting  his 
own  indignation  at  this  particular  decision  when  he 
spoke  of  it,  as  he  did  a  little  later,  as  a  "  pitiful  imita 
tion  of  the  House  of  Lords'  system,"  by  which  a  body 
of  "  small  lawyers,  country  doctors,  merchants,  farm 
ers,"  with  occasionally  a  man  of  ability,  were  consti 
tuted  the  highest  tribunal  in  the  state. 

Two  other  results  followed  incidentally  this  contro 
versy  about  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie.  One  had  the  nat 
ure  of  comedy,  the  other  partook  rather  of  that  of  trag 
edy.  Perry,  as  has  been  said,  was  a  Rhode  Islander,  and 
many  of  the  men  he  had  with  him  had  come  from  that 
state.  Tristam  Burges,  in  his  lecture,  had,  in  many  in 
stances,  allowed  his  eloquence  to  get  the  better  of  his 
sense.  In  the  preface  to  it,  when  published,  he  aban 
doned  the  latter  altogether.  He  twice  asserted,  and 
gave  his  reasons  for  it,  that  "  the  fleet  and  battle  of 
Erie  "  were  to  be  regarded  "  as  a  part  of  the  maritime 
affairs  of  Rhode  Island."  Apparently,  however,  the 
whole  state  took  the  same  view.  There  seemed  to  be 
a  feeling  prevalent  in  it  that  its  own  reputation  lay  in 
destroying  the  reputation  of  Perry's  second  in  command. 
In  1845  Elliott  had  a  medal  struck  in  honor  of  Cooper. 
It  bore  on  one  side  the  head  of  the  author  surrounded 
by  the  words,  "  The  Personification  of  Honor,  Truth, 
and  Justice."  At  the  suggestion  of  John  Quincy  Adams 
copies  were  sent  to  the  various  historical  societies  of  the 
country.  That  statesman  himself  undertook  their  trans- 


TEE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  225 

mission.  Accordingly  one  was  forwarded  among  the 
rest  to  the  Rhode  Island  Society.  It  reached  its  desti 
nation  in  March.  It  threw  that  body  into  a  tumult  of 
excitement.  The  trustees  reflected  upon  it  anxiously. 
They  referred  it  to  a  committee.  After  prolonged 
brooding  the  committee  gave  birth  to  a  preamble  and 
two  resolutions.  These  were  reported  to  the  Society  at 
the  meeting  of  the  1  Oth  of  September.  In  one  of  the 
resolutions  the  letter  of  Adams  was  embodied,  and  he 
was  thanked  for  the  care  and  attention  he  had  displayed 
in  the  discharge  of  the  trust  committed  to  him  by  Com 
modore  Elliott.  The  second  resolution  recited  substan 
tially  that  Cooper  had  not  been  conducting  himself  prop 
erly  in  the  matter,  and  had  published  opinions  which 
the  Society  could  not  adopt  or  sanction.  It  therefore 
declined  to  accept  the  medal  in  his  honor,  and  directed 
the  president  to  transmit  it  to  Adams  with  the  request 
to  return  it  to  Commodore  Elliott.  Vigorous  as  this 
action  may  now  seem,  it  did  not  then  come  up  to  the 
level  of  offended  justice.  There  was  to  be  no  tamper 
ing  with  iniquity,  even  in  high  places.  Elliott  was  not 
to  succeed  in  his  impudent  effort  to  skulk  behind  the 
character  of  Adams,  nor  was  Adams  to  escape  reproof 
for  the  base  uses  to  which  he  had  allowed  himself  to  be 
put.  A  motion  was  accordingly  made  to  strike  out  the 
resolution  conveying  to  that  statesman  the  thanks  of  the 
Society.  It  was  carried  unanimously.  The  medal  was 
accordingly  returned  to  him  with  the  request  that  he 
send  it  to  Elliott  with  an  attested  copy  of  the  resolu 
tion.  Adams's  conception  of  an  Historical  Society  was 
different  from  that  then  entertained  in  Rhode  Island. 
He  clearly  thought  it  no  part  of  their  business  to  be  of 
ficially  engaged  in  upholding  the  reputation  of  favorite 
15 


226  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE  COOPER. 

sons,  or  defending  the  character  of  heroes.  His  reply 
was  curt,  not  to  say  tart.  "  I  decline  the  office,"  he 
wrote,  "  requested  of  me  by  the  Historical  Society  of 
Rhode  Island,  and  hold  the  medal  and  the  copy  of  the 
resolution,  which  they  request  me  to  transmit  to  Com 
modore  Elliott,  to  be  delivered  to  any  person  whom 
they,  or  you  by  their  direction,  may  authorize  to  re 
ceive  them." 

Cooper  apparently  said  nothing  about  this  action  at 
the  time.  He  had  before  been  solemnly  warned  by  the 
Providence  newspapers  not  to  risk  a  controversy  with 
J3urges,  or,  as  they  more  graphically  expressed  it,  not 
•to  "  get  into  the  talons  of  the  bald-headed  eagle  of 
Rhode  Island."  The  threatened  danger,  however,  had 
,not  deterred  him  from  exposing  the  absurdities  into 
which  even  eagles  fall  when  they  use  their  pinions  for 
writing  and  not  for  flying.  Not  even  did  he  have  the 
fear  of  the  Historical  Society  itself  before  his  eyes.  In 
1850  he  took  occasion  to  pay  his  respects  to  that  body. 
He  was  then  bringing  out  a  revised  edition  of  his  novels. 
In  the  preface  to  "  The  Red  Rover,"  he  mentioned  the 
stone  tower  at  Newport,  and  referred  to  the  way  in 
which  he  had  been  assailed  for  his  irreverence  in  call 
ing  it  a  mill.  He  repeated  this  assertion  as  to  its  charac 
ter.  He  expressed  his  belief  that  the  building  was  more 
probably  built  upon  arches  to  defend  grain  from  mice 
than  men  from  savages.  "  We  trust,"  he  added,  "  this 
denial  of  the  accuracy  of  what  may  be  a  favorite  local 
theory  will  not  draw  upon  us  any  new  evidence  of  the 
high  displeasure  of  the  Rhode  Island  Historical  Soci 
ety,  an  institution  which  displayed  such  a  magnanimous 
sense  of  the  right,  so  much  impartiality,  and  so  pro 
found  an  understanding  of  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  the 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  227 

facts  of  the  day,  on  a  former  occasion  when  we  incurred 
its  displeasure,  that  we  really  dread  a  second  encounter 
with  its  philosophy,  its  historical  knowledge,  its  wit,  and 
its  signal  love  of  justice.  Little  institutions,  like  little 
men,  very  naturally  have  a  desire  to  get  on  stilts  ;  a  cir 
cumstance  that  may  possibly  explain  the  theorv  of  this 
extraordinary  and  very  useless  fortification.  We  prefer 
the  truth  and  common  sense  to  any  other  mode  of  rea 
soning,  not  having  the  honor  to  be  an  Historical  Society 
at  all."  No  reply,  at  least  no  public  reply,  came  from 
that  quarter  during  his  life,  to  the  views  he  had  ex 
pressed.  It  was  only  when  he  was  unable  to  defend 
himself  that  he  was  again  assailed.  In  February,  1852, 
an  account  of  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie  was  delivered 
before  the  Rhode  Island  Historical  Society  by  Usher 
Parsons,  who  had  been  assistant  surgeon  on  board  the 
Lawrence.  His  testimony  had  been  somewhat  severely 
criticised  by  Cooper.  Now  that  the  latter  was  in  his 
grave  he  took  occasion  to  cast  imputations  upon  the  mo 
tives  of  the  historian,  and  asperse  the  honesty  of  his 
statements.  Parsons  added  nothing  new  of  moment  to 
the  discussion,  for  what  he  said  was  merely  a  rehash, 
made  in  a  very  bungling  way,  of  the  old  facts  and  as 
sertions.  But  the  spirit  in  which  he  wrote  and  the 
insinuations  in  which  he  indulged  furnish  ample  justifi 
cation  for  the  low  opinion  which  Cooper  held  of  the  ev 
idence  he  had  previously  given. 

With  the  parting  shot  in  the  preface  to  "  The  Red 
Rover,"  the  controversy,  on  Cooper's  part,  concluded. 
He  had,  however,  been  concerned  in  another  matter,  in 
which  the  fortunes  of  his  own  work  and  the  fortunes  of 
one  of  its  critics  were  strangely  blended.  In  1841  an 
abridged  edition  of  his  "  Naval  History  "  was  brought 


228  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

out  in  one  volume.  The  publisher  was  desirous  of  hav 
ing  it  included  in  the  list  of  books  purchased  for  the  dis 
trict  school  libraries  of  New  York.  With  this  object  in 
view  he  offered  it,  without  Cooper's  knowledge,  to  the 
Secretary  of  State,  John  C.  Spencer,  who  was  also  su 
perintendent  of  public  instruction.  To  him  was  con 
fided,  by  virtue  of  his  office,  the  selection  of  the  works 
which  should  constitute  these  libraries.  He  rejected  the 
proposal  with  uncomplimentary  brevity.  He  would  have 
nothing  to  do,  he  informed  the  publisher,  with  so  parti 
san  a  performance.  Soon  after  this  he  emphasized  his 
opinion  of  its  partisanship  by  directing  the  purchase  of 
Mackenzie's  "  Life  of  Perry  "  —  a  work  which  was  al 
most  avowedly  one-sided.  There  was  a  retribution  al 
most  poetical  in  the  tragedy  that  followed ;  for  the  same 
lack  of  mental  balance  and  judgment  that  had  been  ex 
hibited  in  this  biography  of  Perry  was  to  show  itself 
under  circumstances  peculiarly  harrowing.  In  October, 
1841,  Spencer  joined  the  administration  of  John  Tyler 
as  Secretary  of  War.  In  December,  1842,  Mackenzie, 
then  in  command  of  the  United  States  brig  Somers, 
gave  a  still  further  proof  of  his  impartiality  by  hanging 
on  the  high  seas  Spencer's  son,  an  acting  midshipman, 
for  alleged  mutiny.  It  was  done  without  even  going 
through  the  formality  of  a  trial.  It  was  an  act  of  man 
slaughter,  not  committed,  indeed,  from  any  feeling  of 
malice,  but  merely  from  the  same  lack  of  judgment  that 
he  had  displayed  in  the  literary  controversy  in  which  he 
had  been  engaged.  Mackenzie  was  brought  before  a 
naval  court-martial,  and  succeeded  with  some  difficulty 
in  securing  an  acquittal.  In  1844  the  proceedings  of 
the  trial  were  published,  and  annexed  to  them  was  an 
elaborate  review  of  the  case  by  Cooper.  It  was  writ- 


THE  NAVAL  HISTORY.  229 

ten  in  a  calm  and  temperate  tone,  but  it  practically  set 
tled  the  question  of  the  character  of  the  act. 

Cooper's  interest  in  the  navy  led  him  also  to  write  a 
series  of  lives  of  officers  who  had  been  prominent  in  its 
history.  The  first  of  these  appeared  originally  in  "  Gra 
ham's  Magazine  "  for  October,  1842,  and  the  others  are 
scattered  through  the  volumes  of  that  year  and  the 
years  succeeding.  In  1846  they  were  published  in  book 
form.  Among  them  was  a  life  of  Perry.  In  this  he 
took  occasion  to  reaffirm  what  he  had  previously  said 
about  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie.  But  the  injustice  which 
had  been  done  to  him  did  not  lead  him  to  treat  with  in 
justice  the  man  whose  life  he  was  writing,  though  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  say  what  would  be  satisfactory  to 
Perry's  partisans  without  falsifying  what  he  believed  to 
be  the  truth. 

In  spite  of  the  numerous  attacks  made  upon  it  the 
"  Naval  History  "  was  successful,  as  success  is  measured 
in  technical  works  of  this  kind.  A  second  edition,  re 
vised  and  corrected,  appeared  in  April,  1840,  and  in 
1847  a  third  edition  was  published.  At  the  time  of  his 
death  Cooper  was  projecting  a  continuation  of  it,  and 
had  gathered  together  materials  for  that  purpose.  The 
original  work  ended  with  the  close  of  the  last  war  with 
Great  Britain.  He  intended  to  bring  it  down  to  the 
end  of  the  Mexican  War.  This  was  done  by  another 
after  his  death.  In  1853  a  new  edition  of  the  "  Naval 
History  "  appeared  with  a  continuation  prepared  by  the 
the  Reverend  Charles  W.  McHarg.  The  matter  that 
Cooper  had  collected  was  used,  but  there  was  very  little 
in  what  was  added  that  was  of  his  own  composition. 
Of  the  original  work,  it  is  safe  to  say,  that  for  the  pe 
riod  which  it  covers  it  is  little  likely  to  be  superseded 


230  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

as  the  standard  history  of  the  American  navy.  Later 
investigation  may  show  some  of  the  author's  assertions 
to  be  erroneous.  Some  of  his  conclusions  may  turn  out 
as  mistaken  as  have  his  prophecies  about  the  use  of 
steam  in  war  vessels.  But  such  defects,  assuming  that 
they  exist,  are  more  than  counterbalanced  by  advan 
tages  which  make  it  a  final  authority  on  points  that  can 
never  again  be  so  fully  considered.  Many  sources  of 
information  which  were  then  accessible  no  longer  exist. 
The  men  who  shared  in  the  scenes  described,  and  who 
communicated  information  directly  to  Cooper,  have  all 
passed  away.  These  are  losses  that  can  never  be  re 
placed,  even  were  it  reasonable  to  expect  that  the  same 
practical  knowledge,  the  same  judicial  spirit,  and  the 
same  power  of  graphic  description  could  be  found 
united  again  in  the  same  person. 


CHAPTER  XL 

1840-1850. 

No  man  could  go  through  the  conflicts  which  Cooper 
had  been  carrying  on  for  so  many  years  unharmed  or 
unscarred.  For  the  hostility  entertained  and  expressed 
toward  him  in  England  he  cared  but  little.  But  though 
too  proud  to  parade  his  sufferings,  the  injustice  done 
him  in  his  own  land  aroused  in  his  heart  an  indignation 
which  had  in  it,  however,  as  much  pain  as  anger.  He 
could  not  fail  to  see  that  he  was  in  a  false  position,  that 
his  motives  were  misunderstood  where  even  they  were 
not  deliberately  misrepresented.  The  generation  which 
had  shared  in  his  early  triumphs  and  had  gloried  in  his 
early  fame  had  largely  passed  away.  From  some  who 
survived  he  had  been  parted  by  a  separation  bitterer 
than  that  of  death.  To  the  new  generation  that  had 
come  on  he  appeared  only  as  the  captious  and  censori 
ous  critic  of  his  country.  His  works  were  read  in  every 
civilized  country.  To  many  men  they  had  brought  all 
the  little  knowledge  they  possessed  of  America  ;  to  cer 
tain  regions  they  could  almost  be  said  to  have  first  car 
ried  its  name.  But  the  land  which  he  loved  with  a  pas 
sionate  fervor  seemed  largely  to  have  disowned  him.  It 
would  be  vain  to  deny  his  sensitiveness  to  this  hostility. 
Traces  of  his  secret  feeling  crop  out  unexpectedly  in  his 
later  works.  They  reveal  phases  of  his  character  which 
would  never  be  inferred  from  his  acts ;  they  show  the 


232  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

existence  of  sentiments  which  he  would  never  have  di 
rectly  avowed.  "  There  are  men,"  says  the  hero  of 
"  Afloat  and  Ashore,"  "  so  strong  in  principle  as  well  as 
in  intellect,  I  do  suppose,  that  they  can  be  content  with 
the  approbation  of  their  own  consciences,  and  who  can 
smile  at  the  praise  or  censure  of  the  world  alike :  but  I 
confess  to  a  strong  sympathy  with  the  commendation  of 
my  fellow-creatures,  and  a  strong  distaste  for  their  dis 
approbation."  Especially  marked  is  the  reference  to 
himself  in  the  words  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Colum 
bus  in  his  "  Mercedes  of  Castile."  "  Genoa,"  says  the 
navigator,  "  hath  proved  but  a  stern  mother  to  me :  and 
though  nought  could  induce  me  to  raise  a  hand  against 
her,  she  hath  no  longer  any  claim  on  my  services.  .  .  . 
One  cannot  easily  hate  the  land  of  his  birth,  but  injus 
tice  may  lead  him  to  cease  to  love  it.  The  tie  is  mutual, 
and  when  the  country  ceases  to  protect  person,  prop 
erty,  character,  and  rights,  the  subject  is  liberated  from 
all  his  duties." 

It  was  the  attacks  connected  with  the  controversy 
«  about  the  "  Naval  History "  that  more  than  anything 
•  else  embittered  Cooper's  feelings.  He  had  striven  hard 
to  write  a  full  and  trustworthy  account  of  the  achieve 
ments  of  his  country  upon  the  sea.  Because  he  had  re 
fused  to  pervert  what  he  deemed  the  truth  to  the  grati 
fication  of  private  spite,  he  had  been  assailed  with  a 
malignity  that  had  hardly  stopped  short  of  any  species 
of  misrepresentation.  Rarely  has  devotion  to  the  right 
met  with  a  worse  return.  The  reward  of  untiring  in 
dustry,  of  patriotic  zeal,  and  of  conscientious  examina 
tion  of  evidence,  was  little  else  than  calumny  and  abuse. 
He  felt  so  keenly  the  treatment  he  had  received  that  he 
regretted  having  ever  written  the  "  Naval  History  "  at 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  233 

all.  In  a  published  letter  of  the  early  part  of  1843  he 
expressed  himself  on  the  matter  in  words  that  come 
clearly  from  the  depths  of  a  wounded  spirit.  "  Were 
the  manuscript  of  what  has  been  printed,"  he  wrote, 
"  now  lying  before  me  unpublished,  I  certainly  should 
throw  it  into  the  fire  as  an  act  of  prudence  to  myself 
and  of  justice  to  my  children."  In  his  triumphant  reply 
to  Burges,  Duer,  and  Mackenzie,  while  he  showed  the 
haughty  disdain  he  felt  for  the  popular  clamor  which 
had  condemned  him  without  knowledge,  he  did  not  seek 
to  hide  the  bitterness  it  had  caused.  "  This  contro 
versy,"  he  said,  "  was  not  of  my  seeking ;  for  years 
have  I  rested  under  the  imputations  that  these  persons 
have  brought  against  me,  and  I  now  strike  a  blow  in 
behalf  of  truth,  not  from  any  deference  to  a  public  opin 
ion  that  in  my  opinion  has  not  honesty  enough  to  feel 
much  interest  in  the  exposure  of  duplicity  and  artifice, 
but  that  my  children  may  point  to  the  facts  with  just 
pride  that  they  had  a  father  who  dared  to  stem  popular 
prejudice  in  order  to  write  truth." 

It  is  in  these  last  lines  that  Cooper  unconsciously  re 
vealed  the  strength  which  enabled  him  to  go  through 
this  roar  of  hostile  criticism  and  calumny  without  having 
his  whole  nature  soured.  One  great  resource  he  pos 
sessed,  and  its  influence  cannot  be  overestimated.  In 
the  closest  and  dearest  relations  of  life  with  which  hap 
piness  is  connected  far  more  intimately  than  with  the 
most  prosperous  series  of  outward  events,  he  was  su 
premely  fortunate.  In  his  own  home  his  lot  was  fa 
vored  beyond  that  of  most  men.  However  violent  the 
storm  without,  there  he  could  always  find  peace  and 
trust  and  affection.  The  regard,  indeed,  felt  for  him 
by  the  female  members  of  his  family,  may  justly  be 


234  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

termed  devotion.  Towards  all  women  he  exhibited 
deference  almost  to  the  point  of  chivalry.  But  in  the 
case  of  those  of  his  own  household  there  was  mingled 
with  it  a  tenderness  which  called  forth  in  return  that 
ardent  attachment  which  strong  natures  alone  seem  ca 
pable  of  inspiring.  This  deference  and  tenderness  were 
the  more  conspicuous  by  contrast  with  his  opinions. 
These  would  fill  with  wrath  unspeakable  the  advocates 
of  women's  rights.  Nor  was  he  at  all  particular  about 
mincing  their  expression.  He  sometimes  gave  utterance 
to  them  in  the  most  extreme  form.  He  even  made  his 
sentiments  more  emphatic  by  putting  them  into  the 
mouths  of  his  female  characters.  "  There  is,"  says  the 
governess  in  "The  Red  Rover,"  "no  peace  for  our  fee 
ble  sex  but  in  submission ;  no  happiness  but  in  obedience." 
In  his  last  novel  he  denounced  furiously  the  law  that 
gave  to  the  wife  control  over  her  own  property,  and  pre 
dicted,  as  a  consequence,  all  sorts  of  disasters  to  the 
family  that  have  never  come  to  pass.  All  this  was  emi 
nently  characteristic.  But  like  many  strong  men  tena 
cious  of  acknowledged  superiority  he  was  content  with 
the  mere  concession.  That  granted,  he  would  yield  to 
submission  infinitely  more  than  recognized  equality  could 
have  a  right  to  expect  or  could  hope  to  gain.  "We  may 
think  what  we  please  of  his  views  about  women ;  there 
can  be  but  one  opinion  as  to  his  conduct  towards  them. 
A  characteristic  instance  of  the  wantonness  with  which 
Cooper's  acts  and  motives  were  deliberately  misrepre 
sented  during  this  period  occurred  in  1841.  In  that 
year  came  out  a  work,  which  had,  in  its  day,  some  little 
notoriety,  but  has  long  ago  passed  to  the  limbo  of  for 
gotten  things.  It  was  called  "  The  Glory  and  Shame 
of  England."  The  very  title  shows  that  this  production 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  235 

was  maliciously  calculated  to  make  the  British  lion  lash 
his  tail  with  frenzy :  and  if  we  can  trust  its  author,  Mr. 
C.  Edwards  Lester,  it  met  with  fierce  opposition  from 
British  residents  in  this  country  and  their  sympathizers. 
In  an  introductory  letter  addressed  to  the  Reverend  J. 
T.  Headley,  he  told  the  story  of  the  experiences  his 
agents  had  undergone  in  securing  subscriptions.  In  the 
course  of  it  he  made  the  following  allusion  to  Cooper. 
"  Already,"  he  wrote,  "  have  several  educated  and  highly 
respectable  young  men  engaged  (with  unprecedented 
success)  in  procuring  subscribers  for  this  work  been 
rudely  driven  from  the  houses  of  Englishmen  for  cross 
ing  their  threshold  with  the  prospectus.  And  I  blush 
(but  not  for  myself  or  my  country)  to  say  that  one  of 
our  celebrated  authors,  whose  partiality  for  Republican 
ism  has  been  more  than  doubted,  threatened  to  kick  one 
of  these  young  men  out  of  his  house  (castle)  if  he  did 
not  instantly  leave  it ;  exclaiming,  *  Why  have  you  the 
impudence  to  hand  me  that  prospectus  ?  I  under 
stand  what  the  GLORY  of  England  means ;  but  as  for 
the  SHAME  of  England,  there  is  no  such  thing.  The 
shame  is  all  in  that  base  Democracy,  which  makes  you 
presume  to  enter  a  gentleman's  house  to  ask  him  to  sub 
scribe  for  such  a  work.'  " 

This  statement  was  widely  copied  in  the  newspapers. 
But  the  falsity  of  the  fabrication  soon  became  too  ap 
parent  for  even  the  journals  most  hostile  to  Cooper  to 
endure.  They  made  a  vain  effort  to  get  from  the  author 
a  confirmation  of  his  story :  but  though  he  did  not  ven 
ture  to  repeat  the  lie  manfully,  he  equivocated  about  it 
in  a  sneaking  way.  The  newspapers,  feeling,  perhaps, 
that  it  was  undesirable  to  arm  the  book  agent  with  new 
terrors,  credited  at  once  the  denial  the  story  had  re- 


236  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

ceived,  and  took  back  all  imputations  based  upon  it,  — 
a  proceeding  which  ought  to  have  shown  Cooper  that 
they  were  not  so  utterly  given  over  to  the  father  of  all 
evil  as  he  fancied  them.  But  the  author  of  this  impu 
dent  falsehood  never  withdrew  it,  nor  did  the  publishers 
of  the  volume,  in  which  it  was  contained,  disavow  it. 
The  extract  given  above  is  taken  from  an  edition  which 
bears  the  date  of  1845. 

It  is  plain  that  these  calumnious  attacks  sprang  largely 
from  Cooper's  personal  unpopularity.  It  is  equally 
plain  that  his  personal  unpopularity  was  mainly  due  to 
the  censorious  tone  he  had  assumed  in  the  criticism  of 
his  country  and  his  countrymen.  It  may  accordingly 
be  said  that,  in  one  sense,  he  deserved  all  that  he  re 
ceived.  He  had  pursued  a  certain  line  of  conduct.  He 
had  no  reason  to  complain  that  it  had  been  followed  by 
the  same  results  here  that  would  have  followed  similar 
conduct  anywhere.  In  fact,  while  his  censure  of  Eng 
land  had  been  far  lighter  than  that  of  America,  the 
language  used  about  him  in  the  former  country  had  been 
far  more  vulgar  and  abusive  than  that  used  in  the  latter. 
But  there  were  facts  in  his  career  which  his  countrymen 
were  bound  to  bear  in  mind,  but  which,  on  the  contrary, 
they  strove  hard  to  forget,  and  sometimes  to  pervert. 
He  had  been  the  uncompromising  defender  of  his  native 
land  in  places  where  it  cost  reputation  and  regard  to  ap 
pear  in  that  light.  He  was  assailed  largely  by  the  men 
who  had  toadied  to  a  hostile  feeling  which  he  himself 
had  confronted.  His  criticism  of  America  was  some 
times  just,  sometimes  unjust.  It  was  in  a  few  instances 
as  full  of  outrageous  misrepresentation  as  any  which  he 
had  resented  in  others.  Even  when  right,  it  was  often 
wrongly  delivered.  But  in  no  case  did  it  spring  from 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  >  '' 


indifference  or  dislike.  The  very  loftiness 
rations  for  his  country,  the  very  vividness  of  his 
tion  of  what  he  trusted  she  was  to  be,  made 
more  than  ordinarily  sensitive  to  what  she  was,  which 
fell  short  of  his  ideal.  Every  indignity  offered  to  her 
he  felt  as  a  personal  blow  ;  every  stain  upon  her  honor 
as  a  personal  disgrace.  He  had  no  fear  as  to  the  mate 
rial  greatness  of  her  future.  What  he  could  not  bear 
was  that  the  slightest  spot  should  soil  the  garments  of 
her  civilization.  It  was  for  her  character,  her  reputation, 
that  he  most  cared.  It  is  not  necessary  to  maintain  that 
he  was  as  wise  as  he  was  patriotic.  Had  he  been  in  a 
position  where  he  wielded  political  power,  his  impulsive 
and  fiery  temperament  might  very  probably  have  made 
him  an  unsafe  adviser.  His  whole  idea  of  foreign  pol 
icy,  as  connected  with  war,  may  be  summed  up  in  the 
statement  that  the  nation  should  be  as  ready  to  resent  a 
wrong  done  to  ourselves  as  to  repair  a  wrong  done  to 
others.  Nothing  could  be  better  doctrine  in  theory. 
Unfortunately,  the  nation  in  all  such  cases  is  itself  both 
party  and  judge,  and  the  question  of  right  becomes,  in 
consequence,  a  hard  one  to  decide  as  a  matter  of  fact. 
Cooper's  intense  convictions  would  therefore  have  been 
likely  to  have  led  the  country  into  war,  had  he  had  the 
control  of  events,  —  and  war,  too,  at  a  time  when  under 
the  agencies  of  peace  it  was  daily  gathering  strength  to 
meet  a  coming  drain  upon  its  resources  in  a  conflict 
which  but  few  were  then  far-sighted  enough  to  see 
would  squander  wealth  as  lavishly  as  it  wasted  blood. 
Had  it  rested  with  him,  it  is  quite  clear  that  no  Ashbur- 
ton  treaty  would  have  been  signed.  There  is  a  striking 
passage  printed  to  this  day  in  italics,  which  he  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  Leather-Stocking  in  the  novel  of  "  The 


238  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

Deerslayer."  Its  point  is  made  specially  prominent 
when  it  is  remembered  that  this  work  was  written  while 
the  controversy  was  going  on  between  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States  in  regard  to  the  Northeastern  bound 
ary.  "  I  can  see  no  great  difference,"  says  Leather- 
Stocking,  "  atween  givin'  up  territory  afore  a  war,  out 
of  a  dread  of  war,  or  givin'  it  up  after  a  war,  because 
we  can't  help  it  —  onless  it  be  that  the  last  is  most  man 
ful  and  honorable." 

The  features  of  Cooper's  personal  character,  as  well 
as  his  prejudices  and  limitations,  are  always  to  be  kept 
in  mind  because  they  explain  much  that  is  defective  in 
his  art,  and  account  for  much  of  his  unpopularity. 
*Some  of  them  became  unpleasantly  conspicuous  in  the 
writings  of  his  later  years.  In  1840  he  entered  upon  a 
new  period  of  creative  activity  which  lasted  until  1850. 
Between  and  including  those  years  he  brought  out  sev- 
j  enteen  works  of  fiction.  Eleven  of  them  were  written 
during  the  first  half  of  this  period  ending  with  1845, 
and  even  these  did  not  constitute  the  whole  of  what  he 
then  wrote.  This  fertility  is  made  the  more  remarkable 
by  the  fact  that  during  this  same  time  he  was  engaged 
in  the  special  controversy  about  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie, 
not  to  speak  of  his  standing  quarrel  with  the  press  and 
his  running  fight  of  libel  suits  in  which  he  was  not  only 
plaintiff,  but  did  the  main  work  of  the  prosecution. 

It  is  possible  that  his  unpopularity  stirred  him  to  un 
wonted  exertion.     There  is  certainly  no  question  that 
I  the  years  from  1840  to  1845  inclusive,  are,  as  a  whole, 
/  the   supreme  creative  period  of   Cooper's  career.     Its 
I   production  does  not   dwarf  his  early  achievement   in 
vigor  or  interest ;  but  it  does  often  show  a  far  higher 
mastery  of  his   art.     Two  of  the  works   then  written 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  239 

mark  the  culmination  of  his  powers.  These  were  the 
Leather-Stocking  tales  called  "  The  Pathfinder "  and 
"  The  Deerslayer."  The  former  appeared  on  the  14th 
of  March,  1840,  the  latter  on  the  27th  of  August,  1841. 
They  complete  the  circle  of  these  stories ;  for  others 
which  he  contemplated  writing  he  unfortunately  never 
executed.  Still  the  series  was  a  perfect  one  as  it  was 
left.  The  life  of  Leather-Stocking  was  now  a  complete 
drama  in  five  acts,  beginning  with  the  first  war-path  in 
"  The  Deerslayer,"  followed  by  his  career  of  activity 
and  of  love  in  "  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans  "  and  "  The 
Pathfinder,"  and  his  old  age  and  death  in  "  The  Pio 
neers  "  and  "  The  Prairie." 

"  The  gathfinder  "  and  "  The  Deerslayer  "  stand  at 
the  head  of  Cooper's  novels  as  artistic  creations.  There 
are  others  of  his  works  which  contain  parts  as  perfect  as 
are  to  be  found  in  these,  and  scenes  even  more  thrilling. 
Not  one  can  be  compared  with  either  of  them  as  a  fin 
ished  whole.  For  once,  whether  from  greater  care  or 
happier  inspiration,  Cooper  discarded  those  features  of 
his  writings  in  which  he  had  either  failed  entirely,  or 
achieved,  at  the  most,  slight  success.  The  leading  char 
acters  belonged  to  the  class  which  he  drew  best,  so  far 
as  he  was  a  delineator  of  character  at  all.  Here  were 
no  pasteboard  figures  like  Hey  wood  in  "  The  Last  of 
the  Mohicans,"  or  Middleton  in  "  The  Prairie."  Here 
were  no  supernumeraries  dragged  in,  in  a  vain  effort  to 
amuse,  as  the  singing-master  in  the  former  of  these 
same  stories,  or  the  naturalist  in  the  latter.  Humor, 
Cooper  certainly  had ;  but  it  is  the  humor  that  gleams 
in  fitful  flashes  from  the  men  of  earnest  purposes  and 
serious  lives,  and  gives  a  momentary  relief  to  the  stern 
ness  and  melancholy  of  their  natures.  The  power  of 


240  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

producing  an  entire  humorous  creation  he  had  not  at  all, 
and  almost  the  only  thing  that  mars  the  perfectness  of 
"  The  Pathfinder  "  is  the  occasional  effort  to  make  one 
out  of  Muir,  the  character  designed  to  play  the  part  of 
a  villain.     But  the  defects  in  both  these  tales  are  com 
paratively  slight.     The  plot  in  each  is    simple,  but  it 
gives  plenty  of  room  for  the  display  of  those  qualities 
in  which  Cooper  excelled.     The  scene  of  the  one  was 
laid  on  Lake  Ontario  and  its  shores ;  the  other,  on  the 
j  little  lake  near  which  he  had  made  his  home ;  and  the 
I  whole  atmosphere  of  both  is  redolent  of  the  beauty  arid 
l  the  wildness  of  nature. 

These  works  were  a  revelation  to  the  men  who  had 
begun  to  despair  of  Cooper's  ever  accomplishing  again 
anything  worthy  of  his  early  renown.  They  were  pure 
works  of  art.  No  moral  was  everlastingly  perking  itself 
in  the  reader's  face,  no  labored  lecture  to  prove  what 
was  self-evident  interrupted  the  progress  of  the  story. 
There  is  scarcely  an  allusion  to  any  of  the  events  which 
had  checkered  the  novelist's  career.  References  to  con 
temporary  occurrences  are  so  slight  that  they  would  pass 
unheeded  by  any  one  whose  attention  had  not  been 
called  beforehand  to  their  existence.  These  works 
showed  what  Cooper  was  capable  of  when  he  gave  full 
play  to  his  powers,  and  did  not  fancy  he  was  writing  a 
novel  when  he  was  indulging  in  lectures  upon  manners 
and  customs.  "  It  is  beautiful,  it  is  grand,"  said  Balzac 
to  a  friend,  speaking  of  "  The  Pathfinder."  "  Its  in 
terest  is  tremendous.  He  surely  owed  us  this  master 
piece  after  the  last  two  or  three  rhapsodies  he  has  been 
giving  us.  You  must  read  it.  I  know  no  one  in  the 
world,  save  Walter  Scott,  who  has  risen  to  that  grand 
eur  and  serenity  of  colors."  "  Never,"  he  said  in 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  241 

another  place,  "  did  the  art  of  writing  tread  closer  upon 
the  art  of  the  pencil.  This  is  the  school  of  study  for 
literary  landscape-painters."  Cooper  himself,  if  con 
temporary  reports  are  to  be  trusted,  was  at  the  time  in 
the  habit  of  saying  that  the  palm  of  merit  in  his  writ 
ings  lay  between  this  novel  and  "  The  Deerslayer."  He 
certainly  reckoned  them  the  best  of  the  five  stories 
which  have  the  unity  of  a  common  interest  by  having  ; 
the  same  hero,  and  these  five  he  put  at  the  head  of  his  ] 
performances.  "  If  anything  from  the  pen  of  the  writer 
of  these  romances,"  he  said,  toward  the  close  of  his  life, 
"  is  at  all  to  outlive  himself,  it  is  unquestionably  the  se 
ries  of  '  The  Leather- Stocking  Tales.'  To  say  this  is  not 
to  predict  a  very  lasting  reputation  for  the  series  itself, 
but  simply  to  express  the  belief  that  it  will  outlast  any 
or  all  of  the  works  from  the  same  hand." 

But  at  this  time  no  work  of  his  was  treated  fairly  by 
the  American  press.  His  name  was  rarely  mentioned 
save  in  censure  or  derision.  Both  "The  Pathfinder" 
and  "  The  Deerslayer  "  on  their  first  appearance  were 
violently  assailed.  It  is  giving  praise  to  a  good  deal  of 
the  contemporary  criticism  passed  upon  them  to  call  it 
merely  feeble  and  senseless.  Much  of  it  was  marked  by 
a  malignity  which  fortunately  was  as  contemptible  intel 
lectually  as  it  was  morally.  Still,  neither  this  hostile 
criticism  nor  Cooper's  own  personal  unpopularity  hin 
dered  the  success  of  the  books.  He  says,  to  be  sure, 
in  the  preface  to  the  revised  edition  of  the  Leather- 
Stocking  tales  which  came  out  towards  the  end  of  his 
life,  that  probably  not  one  in  ten  of  those  who  knew  all 
about  the  three  earlier  works  of  the  series  had  any 
knowledge  of  the  existence  of  the  two  last.  This  asser 
tion  seems  exaggerated.  It  certainly  struck  many  with 
16 


( 


242  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

surprise  at  the  time  it  was  made  ;  for  both  "  The  Path 
finder  "  and  "  The  Deerslayer  "  had  met  with  a  large 
sale. 

Between  the  publication  of  these  two  novels  appeared, 
on  the  24th  of  November,  1840,  "  Mercedes  of  Castile." 
The  subject  of  this  was  the  first  voyage  of  Columbus. 
It  had  several  very  obvious  defects.  It  was  marred  by 
•that  prolixity  of  introduction  which  was  a  fault  that  ran 
through  the  majority  of  Cooper's  tales.  The  reader 
meets  with  as  many  discouragements  and  rebuffs  and 
turnings  aside  in  getting  under  way  as  did  the  great 
navigator  the  story  celebrates.  There  was,  moreover, 
.an  excess  of  that  cheap  moralizing,  that  dwelling  upon 
commonplace  truths,  which  was  another  of  Cooper's  be 
setting  sins.  The  only  effect  these  discourses  have  upon 
the  reader  is  to  make  him  feel  that  while  virtue  may  be 
a  very  good  thing,  it  is  an  excessively  tedious  thing. 
As  a  novel,  "  Mercedes  of  Castile  "  must  be  regarded 
as  a  failure.  On  the  other  hand,  as  a  story  of  the  first 
voyage  of  Columbus,  told  with  the  special  knowledge  of 
a  seaman,  the  accuracy  of  an  historian,  arid  with  some 
thing  of  the  fervor  of  a  poet,  it  will  always  have  a  pe 
culiar  interest  of  its  own. 

Two  sea-stories  followed  "The  Deerslayer."  The 
first  of  these,  entitled  "  The  Two  Admirals,"  was  pub 
lished  in  April,  1842,  and  the  second  in  November  of 
the  same  year.  Cooper  was  at  this  time  engaged  in  the 
hottest  of  his  fight  with  the  American  press  and  people. 
Publicly  and  privately  he  was  expressing  his  contempt 
for  nearly  everything  and  everybody.  He,  in  turn,  was 
undergoing  assaults  from  every  quarter.  It  is,  there 
fore,  a  singular  illustration  of  the  love  of  country  which 
burned  in  him  with  an  intense,  even  when  hidden, 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  243 

flame,  that  in  the  midst  of  his  greatest  unpopularity  he 
was  unwilling  to  desert  his  own  flag  for  that  of  the  land 
to  which  he  was  forced  to  go  for  material.  Yet  there 
was  every  inducement.  He  wished  to  do  what  had 
never  before  been  done  in  fiction.  His  aim  was  to 
describe  the  evolutions  of  fleets  instead  of  confining 
himself  to  the  movements  of  single  vessels.  But  no 
American  fleet  had  ever  been  assembled,  no  American 
admiral  had  ever  trod  a  quarter-deck.  In  order,  there 
fore,  to  describe  operations  on  a  grand  scale  he  had  to 
have  recourse  to  the  history  of  the  mother-country ;  but 
he  purposely  put  the  scene  in  "  The  Two  Admirals  "  in 
a  period  when  the  states  were  still  colonies.  This  novel 
takes  a  very  high  place  among  the  sea-stories,  so  long 
as  the  action  is  confined  to  the  water.  But  it  suffers 
greatly  from  the  carelessness  and  the  incompleteness 
with  which  the  details  are  worked  out. 

In  "  Win g-and- Wing,"  which  followed  it,  the  fortune 
of  a  French  privateer  is  told.  The  scene  is  laid  in  the 
Mediterranean,  and  the  time  is  the  end  of  the  last  cent 
ury.  Though  inferior  in  power  to  some  of  his  other 
sea-stories,  it  is  far  from  being  a  poor  novel ;  and  it 
was,  in  fact,  one  of  the  author's  favorites.  But  its 
greatest  interest  is  in  the  view  it  gives  of  a  tendency  in 
Cooper's  character  which  was  constantly  becoming  more 
pronounced.  The  Puritanic  narrowness  of  the  very 
deep  and  genuine  religious  element  in  his  nature  was 
steadily  increasing  as  time  went  on.  In  "  Precaution  " 
it  has  been  already  observed  that  the  doctrine  had  been 
laid  down  by  one  of  the  characters  that  there  should  be 
no  marriage  between  Christians  and  non-Christians.  In 
"  Wing-and-Wing  "  this  doctrine  was  fully  carried  out. 
The  heroine  is  a  devout  Roman  Catholic.  She  loves 


244  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

devotedly  the  hero,  the  captain  of  the  French  privateer. 
She  trusts  in  his  honor ;  she  admires  his  abilities  and 
character ;  she  is  profoundly  affected  by  the  fervor  of 
the  affection  he  bears  to  herself.  But  he  is  an  infidel. 
He  is  too  honest  and  honorable  to  pretend  to  believe 
and  think  differently  from  what  he  really  believes  and 
thinks.  As  she  cannot  convert  him,  she  will  not  marry 
him :  and  in  the  end  succeeds  indirectly,  by  her  refusal, 
in  bringing  about  his  death.  It  never  seemed  to  occur 
to  Cooper  that  the  course  of  conduct  he  was  holding  up 
as  praiseworthy,  in  his  novels,  could  have  little  other 
effect  in  real  life  than  to  encourage  hypocrisy  where  it 
did  not  produce  misery.  The  man  who,  for  the  sake  of 
gaining  a  great  prize,  changes  his  religious  views  is  sure 
to  have  his  sincerity  distrusted  by  others.  That  can  be 
borne.  But  he  is  equally  certain  to  feel  distrust  of  him 
self.  He  cannot  have  that  perfect  confidence  in  his 
own  convictions,  or  even  in  his  own  character,  that 
would  be  the  case  had  no  considerations  of  personal  ad 
vantage  influenced  him  in  the  slightest  in  the  decision 
he  had  made,  or  the  conclusions  to  which  he  had  come. 
Even  he  who  believes  in  this  course  of  action  as  some 
thing  to  be  quietly  adopted  might  wisely  refuse  to  pro 
claim  it  loudly  as  a  rule  for  the  conduct  of  life. 

The  next  important  work  that  followed  was  "  Wyan- 
dotte  ;  or  the  Hutted  Knoll."  It  was  published  on  the 
5th  of  September,  1843.  The  story,  as  a  whole,  was  a 
tragic  one.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  events  occur  in 
the  place  and  time  where  some  of  the  author's  greatest 
successes  had  been  achieved,  this  novel  is  inferior  to  all 
his  others  that  deal  with  the  same  scenes.  Certain  man 
ifestations  of  his  feelings  and  certain  traits  of  character 
indicated,  rather  than  expressed,  in  the  tales  immediately 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  245 

preceding,  were  in  this  one  distinctly  revealed.  His  dis 
like  of  the  newspapers  and  the  critics  has  been  so  often 
referred  to  that  it  needs  hardly  to  be  said  that  in  all  the 
writings  of  this  period  these  offenders  were  soundly  cas 
tigated.  Especially  was  this  true  of  the  preface.  It 
was  there,  if  anywhere,  that  Cooper  was  apt  to  concen 
trate  all  the  ill-humor  he  felt  —  his  wrath  against  the 
race  and  his  scorn  of  the  individual.  But  the  two  feel 
ings  that  henceforth  became  conspicuously  noticeable  in 
nearly  all  his  writings  were  his  regard  for  the  Episcopal 
church  and  his  dislike  of  New  England.  They  manifest 
themselves  sometimes  deliciously,  sometimes  disagreea 
bly.  In  the  midst  of  a  story  remote  as  possible  from  the 
occurrences  of  modern  life,  suddenly  turn  up  remarks 
upon  the  apostolic  origin  of  bishops,  or  the  desirability 
of  written  prayers,  and  the  need  of  a  liturgy.  The  im 
propriety  of  their  introduction,  from  a  literary  point  of 
view,  Cooper  never  had  sufficient  delicacy  of  taste  to 
feel.  Less  excusable  were  the  attacks  he  made  upon 
those  whose  religious  views  differed  from  his  own.  The 
insults  he  sometimes  offered  to  possible  readers  were  as 
needless  as  they  were  brutal.  In  one  of  his  later  novels 
he  mentioned  "  the  rowdy  religion  —  half-cant,  half-blas 
phemy,  that  Cromwell  and  his  associates  entailed  on  so 
many  Englishmen."  There  is  little  reason  to  doubt 
that  under  proper  conditions  Cooper  could  easily  have 
developed  into  a  sincere,  narrow-minded,  and  ferocious 
bigot.1 

1  Poe  wrote  a  review  of  Wyandotte  which  appeared  in  Graham's 
Magazine  for  November,  1843.  As  notices  of  Cooper's  novels  then 
went,  this  may  be  regarded  as  a  favorable  one,  though  in  it  the  critic 
took  occasion  to  divide  works  of  fiction  into  two  classes:  one  of  a 
popular  sort  which  anybody  could  write,  and  the  other  of  a  kind  in 
trinsically  more  worthy  and  artistic,  and  capable  of  being  produced 


246  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

Full  as  marked  and  even  more  persistent  were  his 
attacks  upon  New  England.  There  was  little  specially 
characteristic  of  that  portion  of  the  country  with  which 
he  did  not  find  fault.  New  England  cooking  of  the  first 
class  was  inferior  to  that  of  the  second  class  in  the  Mid 
dle  States.  The  New  Yorker  of  humble  life,  not  of 
Yankee  descent,  spoke  the  language  better  than  thou 
sands  of  educated  men  in  New  England.  This  dislike 
kept  steadily  increasing.  As  late  as  1844,  if  he  sent 
his  heroes  to  college  at  all,  he  sent  them  to  Yale;  after 
that  year  he  transferred  them  to  Princeton.  With  all 
this  there  is  constantly  seen  going  on  a  somewhat  amus 
ing  struggle  between  his  dislike  and  the  thorough  hon 
esty  of  his  nature,  which  forced  him  to  admit  in  the  men 
of  New  England  certain  characteristics  of  a  high  order. 
Their  frugality,  their  enterprise,  their  readiness  of  re 
source,  he  could  not  deny.  Still,  he  continued  to  im 
ply  that  these  qualities  were  used  pretty-  generally  for 
selfish  ends.  In  his  later  works,  in  consequence,  his  vil 
lains  were  very  apt  to  be  New  Englanders.  They  were 
not  villains  of  a  romantic  type.  They  were  mean  rather 
than  vicious ;  crafty  rather  than  bold  ;  given  to  degrading 

only  by  the  few.  At  the  head  of  the  former  class  he  placed  Cooper, 
but  had  the  grace  not  to  include  his  own  name  in  the  latter  class  which 
he  had  created  for  himself.  The  reader  will  be  edified  to  learn  from  a 
life  of  Poe,  written  by  John  H.  Ingram  (2  vols.,  London,  1880),  that 
the  writing  of  this  review  was  an  act  of  heroic  and  even  desperate 
hardihood.  Poe,  it  seems,  had  before  valorously  depreciated  Halleck; 
but  his  crowning  act  of  courage  is  introduced  with  the  statement  that 
"  he  dared  all  published  opinion,  and  in  the  very  teeth  of  Cooper's  su 
preme  popularity  ventured  upon  saying"  the  remarks  which  have  al 
ready  been  referred  to,  and  which  are  quoted  in  full  by  the  biographer, 
to  whom  is  also  to  be  given  the  credit  of  the  italicized  word  in  the 
foregoing  quotation.  No  small  share  of  the  common  belief  in  regard 
to  Cooper's  character  and  career  is  based  upon  assertions  about  as 
trustworthy  as  this. 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  247 

but  at  the  same  time  cheap  excesses.  The  first  of  these 
special  representatives  of  the  New  England  character  is 
the  powerful  but  somewhat  unpleasant  creation  of  Ithuel 
Bolt  in  "  Wing-and-Wing,"  who  finds  a  fitting  sequel  to 
a  life  passed  largely  in  committing  acts  of  doubtful  mo 
rality  in  becoming  a  deacon  in  a  Congregational  church. 
After  him  follows  a  succession  of  personages  who  rep 
resent  nearly  every  conceivable  shade  of  craft,  meanness, 
and  dishonesty  that  is  consistent  with  the  respect  of  the 
Puritan  community  about  them,  and  with  a  high  posi 
tion  in  the  religious  society  of  which  they  form  a  part. 

There  was,  it  must  be  admitted,  some  justification  for 
Cooper's  feelings  towards  New  England  on  the  score  of 
retaliation.  He  had  been  criticised  from  the  beginning 
in  that  part  of  the  country  with  a  severity  that  often  ap 
proached  virulence.  He  had  been  denied  there  the 
possession  of  qualities  which  the  rest  of  the  world  agreed 
in  according  him.  Cultivated  society  has  always  been 
afflicted  with  a  class  too  superlatively  intellectual  to  en 
joy  what  everybody  else  likes.  Of  these  unhappy  beings 
New  England  has  had  the  misfortune  to  have  perhaps 
more  than  her  proper  share.  It  was  hardly  in  human 
nature  that  the  disparagement  he  received  from  these 
should  not  have  influenced  his  feelings  towards  the  re 
gion  which  had  given  them  birth  and  consideration. 

It  is  pleasant  to  turn  aside  from  these  scenes  and 
sayings  which  show  the  least  amiable  side  of  a  nat 
ure  essentially  noble,  and  pass  to  one  of  .the  little  inci 
dents  that  are  strikingly  characteristic  of  the  man.  On 
board  the  Sterling,  the  merchantman  on  which  Coop 
er's  first  voyage  was  made,  was  a  boy  younger  than 
himself.  His  name  was  Ned  Myers.  This  person  had 
spent  his  life  on  the  sea.  He  had  belonged  to  seventy- 


248  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

two  crafts,  exclusive  of  prison-ships,  transports,  and 
vessels  ID  which  he  had  merely  made  passages.  Ac 
cording  to  his  own  calculation  he  had  been  twenty-five 
years  out  of  sight  of  land.  After  this  long  and  varied 
career  he  had  finally  landed  in  that  asylum  for  worn- 
out  mariners,  the  "  Sailors'  Snug  Harbor."  From  here, 
late  in  1842,  he  wrote  to  Cooper,  asking  him  if  he 
were  the  one  with  whom  he  had  served  in  the  Ster 
ling.  Cooper,  who  never  forgot  a  friend,  sent  him  a 
reply,  beginning :  "  I  am  your  old  shipmate,  Ned,"  and 
told  him  when  and  where  he  could  be  found  in  New 
York.  There  in  a  few  months  they  met  after  an  inter 
val  of  thirty-seven  years.  Cooper  took  the  battered  old 
hulk  of  a  seaman  up  to  Cooperstown  in  June,  1843,  and 
entertained  him  for  several  weeks.  While  the  two  were 
knocking  about  the  lake,  and  the  latter  was  telling  his 
adventures,  it  occurred  to  the  former  to  put  into  print 
the  wandering  life  the  sailor  had  led.  Between  them  the 
work  was  done  that  summer,  and  in  November,  1843, 
"  Ned  Myers  ;  or,  Life  before  the  Mast "  was  published. 
This  work  has  often  been  falsely  spoken  of  as  a  novel. 
It  is,  on  the  contrary,  a  truthful  record,  so  far  as  depend 
ence  can  be  placed  upon  the  word  or  the  memory  of  the 
narrator.  "  This  is  literally,"  said  Myers,  "  my  own 
story,  logged  by  an  old  shipmate." 

In  1842  Cooper  had  entered  into  an  engagement  to 
write  regularly  for  "  Graham's  Magazine."  This  peri 
odical,  which  had  been  formed  not  long  before  by  the 
union  of  two  others,  had  rapidly  risen  to  high  reputa 
tion,  and  claimed  a  circulation  of  thirty  thousand  copies. 
In  the  first  four  numbers  of  1843  Cooper  published  the 
shortest  of  his  stories.  It  was  entitled  "  The  Autobiog 
raphy  of  a  Pocket  Handkerchief."  For  some  reason 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  249 

not  easy  to  explain,  this  has  never  been  included  in 
the  regular  editions  of  his  novels.  In  it  he  made  in 
some  measure  another  effort  to  reproduce  the  social  life 
of  New  York  city.  The  previous  failure  was  repeated. 
An  air  of  ridiculous  unreality  is  given  to  this  part  of 
the  story  in  which  the  impossible  talk  of  impossible 
people  is  paraded  as  a  genuine  representation  of  what 
takes  place  in  civilized  society.  The  autobiographical 
form  which  he  had  first  adopted  in  this  tale  he  contin 
ued  in  the  two  series  of  "  Afloat  and  Ashore."  These 
appeared  respectively  in  June  and  in  December,  1844. 
They  are  essentially  one  novel,  though  the  second  part 
goes  usually  in  this  country  under  the  title  of  "  Miles 
Wallingford,"  the  name  of  its  hero ;  and  in  Europe 
under  that  of  "  Lucy  Harding,"  the  name  of  its  heroine. 
This  work,  the  first  part  more  particularly,  is  a  de 
lightful  story  of  adventure.  As  usual  there  are  start 
ling  incidents,  perilous  situations,  and  hairbreadth  es 
capes  enough  to  furnish  sufficient  materials  for  a  dozen 
ordinary  fictions.  Yet  the  probabilities  are  better  pre 
served  than  in  many  of  Cooper's  novels  where  the 
events  are  far  fewer,  as  well  as  far  less  striking.  But 
it  is  interesting,  not  merely  for  the  incidents  it  contains, 
but  for  the  revelation  it  makes  of  the  man  who  wrote 
it.  Expressions  of  personal  feeling  and  opinion  turn  up 
unexpectedly  everywhere,  and  make  slight  but  con 
stantly  recurring  eddies  in  the  stream  of  the  story.  Ev 
erything  is  to  be  found  here  which  he  had  ever  dis 
cussed  before.  The  inferiority  of  the  bay  of  New  York 
to  that  of  Naples ;  the  miserable  cooking  and  gross 
feeding  of  New  England ;  the  absolute  necessity  of  a 
liturgy  in  religious  worship  ;  the  contempt  he  felt  for 
the  misguided  beings  who  presume  to  deny  the  exist- 


250  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

ence  of  bishops  in  the  primitive  church ;  his  aversion 
to  paper  money  ;  his  disdain  for  the  shingle  palaces  of 
the  Grecian  temple  school ;  his  scorn  of  the  idea  that 
one  man  is  as  good  as  another ;  these  and  scores  of  sim 
ilar  utterances  arrest  constantly  the  reader's  attention. 
But  they  do  not  jar  upon  his  feelings  as  in  many  other 
of  his  writings.  They  are  essentially  different  in  tone. 
There  runs  through  this  series  a  vein  of  ill-natured  ami 
ability  or  amiable  ill-nature  —  it  is  hard  to  say  which 
phrase  is  more  appropriate  —  which  gives  to  the  whole 
what  horticulturists  call  a  delicate  sub-acid  flavor.  The 
roar  of  contempt  found  in  previous  writings  subsided  in 
these  into  a  sort  of  prolonged  but  subdued  growl.  But 
it  is  a  case  in  which  the  reader  feels  that  it  is  eminently 
proper  that  the  writer  should  growl.  It  is  the  old  man 
of  sixty-five  telling  the  tale  of  his  early  years.  His  pref 
erences  for  the  past  do  not  irritate  us,  they  entertain  us. 
It  is  right  that  the  world  about  him  should  seem  meaner 
and  more  commonplace  than  it  did  in  the  fever-fit  of 
youth  and  love,  when  it  was  joy  merely  to  live.  The 
work,  moreover,  has  another  characteristic  that  gives  it 
a  whimsical  attractiveness.  It  is  a  tale  of  the  good  old 
times  when  New  York  had  still  some  New  York  feeling 
left ;  when  her  old  historic  names  still  carried  weight 
and  found -universal  respect,  and  her  old  families  still 
ruled  society  with  a  despotic  sway ;  and  especially  be 
fore  the  whole  state  had  been  overrun  by  the  lank, 
angular,  loose-jointed,  slouching,  shrewd,  money-wor 
shiping  sons  of  the  Puritans,  whose  restless  activity  had 
triumphed  over  the  slow  and  steady  respectability  of  the 
original  settlers.  The  scene  of  this  story,  so  far  as  it 
is  laid  on  land,  is  mainly  in  the-  river  counties  ;  but  in 
spite  of  that  fact  it  is  difficult  not  to  think  that  some 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  251 

recollections  "of  the  writer's  own  youth  were  not  min 
gled  in  certain  portions  of  it.  Especially  is  it  a  hard 
task  not  to  fancy  that  in  the  heroine,  Lucy  Harding,  he 
was  drawing,  in  some  slight  particulars  at  least,  the  pict 
ure  of  his  own  wife,  and  telling  the  story  of  his  early 
love. 

The  delineation  of  the  New  York  life  of  the  past 
which  he  had  in  some  measure  accomplished  in  these 
volumes,  he  now  continued  more  fully  in  certain  works 
which  took  up  successive  periods  in  the  history  of  the 
state.  The  idea  of  writing  them  was  suggested  by 
events  that  were  taking  place  at  the  time.  The  troubles 
which  arose  in  certain  counties  of  New  York  after  the 
death,  in  1839,  of  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer,  the  patroon, 
were  now  culminating  in  a  series  of  acts  of  violence  and 
bloodshed,  perpetrated  usually  by  men  disguised  as  In 
dians.  The  questions  involved  had  likewise  become 
subjects  of  fierce  political  controversy.  Cooper,  who 
saw  in  the  conduct  of  the  tenants  and  their  supporters 
a  dangerous  invasion  of  the  rights  of  property,  plunged 
into  the  discussion  of  the  matter  with  all  the  ardor  of  his 
fiery  temperament.  He 'worked  himself  into  the  high 
est  state  of  excitement  over  the  proceedings.  It  was 
his  interest  in  this  matter  that  led  him  to  compose  the 
three  works  which  are  collectively  called  the  Anti-rent 
novels.  These  purport  to  be  the  successive  records  of 
the  Littlepage  family,  and  each  is  in  the  form  of  an  au 
tobiography.  They  cover  a  period  extending  from  the 
first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  down  to  the  very 
year  in  which  he  was  writing. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Cooper's  reputation 
touched  the  lowest  point  to  which  it  has  ever  fallen,  so 
far,  at  least,  as  it  depends  upon  the  opinion  of  critics 


252  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

and  of  men  of  letters.  He  was  now  reaping  the  fruits 
of  the  various  controversies  in  which  he  had  been  en 
gaged,  and  of  all  the  hostility  which  he  had  succeeded 
in  inspiring.  The  two  anti-rent  novels  which  appeared 
in  1845  were  "  Satanstoe,"  published  in  June,  and  "  The 
Chainbearer,"  published  in  November.  They  may  have 
had  a  large  sale.  But  there  is  scarcely  a  review  of  the 
period  in  which  they  are  even  mentioned.  Even  the 
newspapers  contain  merely  the  barest  reference  to  their 
existence.  It  is  perhaps  partly  due  to  this  contemporary 
silence  that  these  two  stories  are  among  the  least  known 
and  least  read  of  Cooper's  productions.  Moreover,  they 
are  constantly  misjudged.  The  tone  which  pervades  the 
concluding  novel  of  the  series  is  taken  as  the  tone 
which  pervades  the  two  which  preceded  it.  This  is  an 
injustice  as  well  as  a  mistake.  In  no  sense  is  "  Satans 
toe,"  in  particular,  a  political  novel.  There  is  no  refer 
ence  to  anti-rentism  in  it  save  in  the  preface.  Its  only 
connection  with  the  subject  is  the  account  it  gives  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  great  estates  were  originally  set 
tled.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  a  picture  of  colonial  life 
and  manners  in  New  York  during  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  such  as  can  be  found  drawn  no 
where  else  so  truthfully  and  so  vividly.  It  takes  rank 
among  the  very  best  of  Cooper's  stories.  The  charac 
ters  are,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  same  as  in  "  Afloat  and 
Ashore ; "  the  main  difference  being,  that  in  the  one  the 
events  take  place  principally  on  land,  and  in  the  other 
on  water.  Even  those  majestic  first  families,  whom 
he  had  celebrated  before,  loom  up  in  these  pages  with 
renewed  and  increasing  grandeur.  But  the  story  is 
throughout  told  in  a  graphic  and  spirited  manner,  and 
as  it  approaches  the  end  and  details  the  scenes  that  fol- 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  253 

low  Abercrombie's  repulse  at  Lake  George  in  1758,  it 
becomes  intensely  exciting.  The  villain  of  the  tale  is, 
of  course,  a  New  Englander,  in  this  instance  a  long,  un 
gainly  pedagogue  from  Danbury,  Connecticut.  He  does 
not,  however,  blossom  out  into  the  full  perfection  of  his 
rascality  until  he  makes  his  appearance  in  "  The  Chain- 
bearer,"  the  next  novel  of  the  series.  This  tale,  though 
decidedly  inferior  to  "  Satanstoe,"  contains  passages  of 
great  interest.  The  description,  especially,  of  the  squat 
ter  family  and  the  life  led  by  it,  is  one  of  Cooper's  most 
powerfully  drawn  pictures. 

It  has  been  the  misfortune  of  this  series  that  the 
member  of  it  which  has  attracted  most  attention  is 
"The  Redskins;  or,  Indian  and  Injin,"  which  came  out 
in  July,  1846.  This  is  one  of  three  or  four  books  which, 
in  a  certain  way,  give  one  a  high  idea  of  Cooper's 
power  in  the  fact  that  his  reputation  has  been  able  to 
survive  them.  If  he  had  been  anxious  to  help  the  anti- 
renters  and  hurt  the  patroon,  he  could  hardly  have  done 
better  than  to  write  this  book.  As  a  story  it  has  no 
merit.  The  incidents  told  in  it  are  absurd.  It  is  full, 
moreover,  of  the  arguments  that  irritate  but  do  not  con 
vince  ;  and  is  liberally  supplied,  in  addition,  with  proph 
ecies  that  have  never  been  realized.  Everything  that 
was  disagreeable  in  Cooper's  manner  and  bungling  in 
his  art,  was  conspicuous  in  this  work.  His  dislikes  were 
not  uttered  pleasantly,  as  in  "  Afloat  and  Ashore,"  but 
with  an  ill-nature  that  often  bordered  upon  ferocity.  A 
tone  of  pretension  ran  through  the  whole,  a  constant  ref 
erence  to  what  men  think  who  had  seen  the  world,  with 
the  implied  inference  that  those  who  disagreed  with  the 
author  in  opinion  had  not  seen  the  world.  The  feeling 
of  the  reader  is,  that  if  this  extravagance  and  over-state- 


254  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

ment  be  the  result  of  travel,  men  had  better  stay  at 
home.  Nor  did  Cooper  refrain  from  dragging  in  every 
thing  with  which  he  had  found  fault  before.  We  are 
not  even  spared  the  everlasting  reference  to  the  bays  of 
New  York  arid  of  Naples.  The  work  is  what  he  him 
self  would  have  called  provincial  in  the  worst  sense  of 
that  word.  Even  more  than  its  spirit  was  its  matter 
extraordinary  for  a  work  of  fiction.  Part  of  it  is  little 
else  than  a  controversial  tract  on  the  superiority  of 
Episcopacy ;  and  the  temper  in  which  it  is  written 
could  hardly  have  been  grateful  to  any  but  an  oppo 
nent  of  that  church.  "  Satanstoe  "  is  full  of  many  of 
Cooper's  likes  and  dislikes,  but  there  can  be  no  greater 
contrast  conceived  than  between  the  tone  which  per 
vades  that  delightful  creation,  and  the  boisterous  brawl 
ing  of  "  The  Redskins. 

With  the  publication  of  this  series  Cooper's  career 
as  a  creator  of  works  of  imagination  practically  closed. 
He  wrote  several  novels  afterward,  but  not  one  of  them 
did  anything  to  advance  his  reputation.  Some  of  them 
tended  to  lower  it.  This  was  not  due  to  failure  of 
power,  but  to  its  misdirection.  The  didactic  element 
in  his  nature  had  now  gained  complete  mastery  over 
the  artistic.  The  interest,  such  as  it  is,  which  belongs 
to  his  later  stones,  is  rarely  a  literary  interest.  Not 
one  of  them  has  t,he  slightest  pretension  to  be  termed 
a  work  of  art.  There  are,  at  times,  passages  in  them 
that  thrill  us,  and  scenes  that  display  something  of  his 
old  skill  in  description.  But  these  are  recollections 
rather  than  new  creations.  Cooper's  fame  would  not 
have  been  a  whit  lessened,  if  every  line  he  wrote  after 
"The  Chainbearer"  had  never  seen  the  light. 

The  works  that  came  out  during  the  remaining  years 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  255 

of  his  life  were  "The  Crater,"  published  October  12, 
1847;  "Jack  Tier,"  published  March  21,  1848;  "The 
Oak  Openings,"  published  August  24  of  the  same  year; 
"The  Sea  Lions,"  published  April  10,  1849,  and  "The 
Ways  of  the  Hour,"  published  April  1 0,  1850.  Of  these 
"Jack  Tier"  originally  made  its  appearance  in  "  Gra 
ham's  Magazine"  during  the  years  1845-1847,  under 
the  title  of  "  The  Islets  of  the  Gulf,"  and  strictly  stands 
first  in  the  order  of  time.  It  shares  with  "The  Crater" 
the  distinction  of  being  one  of  the  two  best  of  these 
later  stories.  It  may  be  fair  to  mention  that  Bryant 
saw  in  it  as  much  spirit,  energy,  invention,  and  life-like 
presentation  of  objects  and  events  as  in  anything  the 
author  ever  wrote.  This  will  seem  exaggerated  praise 
when  one  reads  it  in  connection  with  "  The  Red  Rover," 
of  which  it  is  in  some  respects  a  feeble  reflection.  It 
was  hard  for  Cooper  to  be  uninteresting  when  once 
fairly  launched  upon  the  waves.  Without  denying  the 
existence  in  "Jack  Tier"  of  passages  of  marked  power, 
no  small  share  of  it  was  merely  a  reproduction  of  what 
had  been  done  and  better  done  before.  The  old  woman 
who  is  constantly  misusing  nautical  terms  is  the  most 
palpable  imitation  of  the  admiral's  widow  in  "  The  Red 
Rover."  It  is  a  cheap  expedient  at  best,  and  must  at 
any  time  be  used  with  extreme  moderation.  Above  all, 
it  is  a  device  which  is  abused  the  very  moment  it  is  re 
peated.  As  displayed  in  "  Jack  Tier,"  it  is  simply  un 
endurable.  Cooper's  silly  people,  in  facts  are  apt  to  be 
silly  not  only  beyond  human  experience  but  almost  be 
yond  human  conception.  The  tragedy,  moreover,  with 
which  this  novel  ends  is  intended  to  be  terrible,  while 
as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  merely  grotesque  and  absurd. 
The  tale  reaches  a  sudden  but  necessary  conclusion  be- 


256  JAMES  FEN  HI  ORE   COOPER, 

cause  nearly  all  the  characters  are  disposed  of  at  once 
by  drowning  or  killing.  There  is  scarcely  any  one  left 
to  carry  on  the  action  of  the  story. 

"  The  Crater,"  which  in  one  sense  followed  and  in 
another  preceded  "  Jack  Tier,"  has  a  very  special  in 
terest  to  the  student  of  Cooper's  character.  He  had 
now  lived  for  so  long  a  time  a  life  remote  from  the  real 
clash  of  conflicting  views  that  he  had  finally  reached 
that  satisfied  state  of  opinion  which  thinks  the  little 
circle  in  which  it  moves  is  the  proper  orbit  for  the  revo 
lution  of  thought  of  the  whole  race.  As  he  advanced 
in  years  he  narrowed  instead  of  broadening.  The  in 
tensity  of  his  faith  coupled  with  his  energy  of  expres 
sion  makes  this  fact  very  conspicuous  ;  and  in  "  The 
Crater "  the  reader  is  alternately  attracted  by  the 
shrewd  and  keen  remarks  of  the  writer,  and  repelled 
by  his  illiberality.  This  novel  tells  the  tale  of  a  ship 
wrecked  mariner  cast  away  on  a  reef  not  laid  down  in 
any  chart  and  unknown  to  navigators.  This  barren 
spot  he  makes  bud  and  blossom  as  the  rose.  To  the 
new  Utopia  he  has  created  in  the  bosom  of  the  Pacific 
he  brings  a  body  of  emigrants.  Their  proceedings  are 
entertainingly  told.  But  the  history  of  the  decline  of 
the  colony  from  its  primitive  state  of  happiness  and  per 
fection,  which  is  designed  to  furnish  a  warning,  tends 
instead  to  fill  the  irreverent  with  amusement.  While 
under  the  control  of  its  founder  and  governor,  who 
combined  all  the  virtues,  it  is  represented  as  enjoying 
peace  and  prosperity.  Demagogism  had  no  control. 
The  reign  of  gossip  had  not  begun.  The  great  discov 
ery  had  not  been  made  that  men  were  merely  inci 
dents  of  newspapers.  Care  was  taken  that  the  children 
should  not  imbibe  any  false  principles,  that  is,  any  princi- 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  257 

pies  which  the  ruling  powers  thought  false.  The  schools 
did  not  furnish  much  instruction,  but  owing  to  this  con 
siderate  watchfulness  they  were  innocent  if  they  were 
inefficient.  Still  this  ingenious  arrangement  for  stopping 
the  progress  of  the  human  mind  could  not  work  forever. 
From  the  start  there  was  a  dangerous  element,  though 
in  this  case  the  colonists  had  not  come  from  New  Eng 
land  but  from  the  Middle  States.  Very  speedily  that 
innate  depravity  of  the  human  heart  which  does  not 
like  to  hear  a  clergyman  read  prayers,  which  looks  with 
suspicion  upon  a  liturgy,  began  to  manifest  itself.  This, 
however,  was  kept  under  control  until  the  arrival  of  new 
colonists.  This  Eden  was  then  invaded  not  by  one  ser 
pent  only,  but  by  several.  Four  of  them  were  clergy 
men  ;  one  a  Presbyterian,  one  a  Methodist,  one  a  Bap 
tist,  and  one  a  Quaker.  This  was  too  much  for  the 
solitary  Episcopalian  who  had  previously  been  on  the 
ground,  and  who  is  represented  as  combining  a  weak 
physical  constitution  with  a  very  strong  conception  of 
his  apostolic  authority  as  a  divine.  It  must  be  conceded 
that  for  a  population  of  about  five  hundred  souls  the 
supply  of  spiritual  teachers  was  ample.  With  them 
came  also  a  lawyer  and  an  editor.  The  seeds  of  disso 
lution  were  at  once  sown.  The  colonists  became  un 
grateful,  and  began  to  inquire  not  only  into  the  conduct 
of  their  governor,  but  even  into  the  title  by  which  he  held 
some  of  his  lands.  He  finally  left  the  spot  in  disgust, 
and  having  first  taken  the  precaution  to  dispose  of  his 
property  at  a  good  price,  returned  to  his  native  country. 
A  natural  yearning  to  see  the  community  he  had  estab 
lished  led  the  discoverer  to  revisit,  after  a  few  months, 
the  scene  of  his  trials.  He  sailed  to  the  spot  but  he 
could  not  find  it.  A  convulsion  of  nature  similar  to 
17 


258  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

that  which  had  raised  the  reef  above  the  level  of  the 
waves  had  sunk  it  again  out  of  sight.  Ungrateful  col 
onists,  clergymen,  editor,  and  lawyer,  had  all  perished. 
In  June,  1847,  Cooper  made  a  trip  to  the  West,  and 
went  as  far  as  Detroit.  One  result  of  this  journey  was 
the  novel  of  "  The  Oak  Openings  ;  or,  the  Bee-Hunter." 
This  must  be  looked  upon  as  a  decided  failure.  The 
desire  to  lecture  his  fellow-men  on  manners  had  now 
"given  place  to  a  desire  to  edify  them ;  and  he  was  no 
more  successful  in  the  one  than  he  had  been  in  the  other. 
In  this  instance  the  issue  of  the  story  depends  on  the 
course  of  an  Indian  who  is  converted  to  Christianity  by 
witnessing  the  way  in  which  a  self-denying  Methodist 
missionary  meets  his  death.  The  whole  winding-up  is 
unnatural,  and  the  process  of  turning  the  organizing 
chief  of  a  great  warlike  confederacy  into  a  Sunday- 
school  hero  is  only  saved  from  being  commonplace  by 
being  absurd.  Far  more  singular,  however,  was  the 
central  idea  of  "  The  Sea  Lions,"  the  story  that  fol 
lowed.  This  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
conceptions  that  it  ever  entered  into  the  mind  of  a  novel 
ist  to  create.  It  shows  the  intense  hold  religious  con 
victions  were  taking  of  Cooper's  feelings,  and  to  what 
extremes  of  opinion  they  were  carrying  him.  In  "  Wing- 
and-Wing  "  the  hero  had  been  discarded  because  he  was 
a  thorough  infidel.  But  Cooper's  sentiments  had  now 
moved  a  long  distance  beyond  this  milk-and-water  way 
of  dealing  with  religious  differences.  In  "  The  Sea 
Lions "  the  hero  merely  denied  the  divinity  of  Christ, 
while  he  professed  to  hold  him  in  reverence  as  the  pur 
est  and  most  exalted  of  men.  But  if  there  was  any 
one  point  on  which  the  heroine  was  sound  and  likewise 
inflexible,  it  was  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  Whatever 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  259 

else  she  doubted,  she  was  absolutely  sure  of  the  incarna 
tion.  She  would  not  unite  herself  with  one  who  pre 
sumed  to  "  set  up  his  own  feeblo  understanding  of  the 
nature  of  the  mediation  between  God  and  man  in  oppo 
sition  to  the  plainest  language  of  revelation  as  well  as 
to  the  prevalent  belief  of  the  Church."  In  this  case 
the  hero  is  converted,  apparently  by  spending  a  winter 
in  the  Antarctic  seas.  An  important  agent  in  effecting 
this  change  of  belief  is  a  common  seaman  who  improves 
every  occasion  to  drop  into  the  conversation  going  on, 
some  unexpected  Trinitarian  remark.  When  the  master 
has  almost  against  hope  saved  his  vessel,  and  in  the 
thankfulness  of  his  heart  invokes  blessing  on  the  name 
of  God,  Stimson  is  on  hand  at  his  elbow  to  add,  "  and 
that  of  his  only  and  true  Son."  This  novel  is,  indeed,  a 
further  but  unneeded  proof  of  how  little  Cooper  was  able 
to  project  himself  out  of  the  circle  of  his  own  feelings, 
or  to  aid  any  cause  which  he  had  near  to  his  heart.  He 
had  had  much  to  say  about  New  England  cant.  Yet  in 
this  work  he  can  find  no  words  sufficiently  strong  to 
praise  what  he  calls  the  zealous  freedom  and  Christian 
earnestness  of  ono  of  the  most  offensive  canters  that  the 
whole  range  of  fiction  presents.  It  would  be  unjust  to 
deny  that  when  in  "  The  Sea  Lions  "  Cooper  abandons 
his  metaphysics  and  turns  to  his  real  business,  that  he 
creates  a  powerful  story.  One  may  almost  be  said  at 
times  to  feel  the  cold,  the  desolation,  the  darkness,  and 
the  gloom  of  an  Antarctic  winter  confronting  and  over 
shadowing  the  spirit.  But  there  can  be  little  that  is 
more  tedious  than  the  dry  chaff  of  theological  discussion 
which  is  here  threshed  for  us  over  and  over  again. 
Believers  in  the  Trinity  had  as  little  reason  as  believers 
in  Episcopacy  to  rejoice  in  Cooper's  advocacy  of  their 


260        JAMES  FEN IM  ORE  COOPER. 

faith.  There  was  nothing  original  in  his  views  ;  there 
was  nothing  pointed  or  forcible  in  his  statement  of  them. 
He  meant  to  inculcate  a  lesson,  and  the  only  lesson  that 
can  possibly  be  drawn  is  the  sufficiently  absurd  one  that 
dwellers  in  the  chilly  spiritual  clime  of  Unitarianism  can 
be  cured  of  their  faith  in  that  icy  creed  by  being  sub 
jected  to  the  horrors  of  a  polar  winter.  Far  more 
clearly  does  the  novel  show  the  falling-off  in  his  artistic 
conceptions  and  the  narrowing  process  his  opinions  were 
undergoing.  At  the  rate  this  latter  was  taking  place  it 
seems  probable  that  had  he  lived  to  write  another  novel 
on  a  theme  similar  to  this,  his  hero  would  have  been  com 
pelled  to  abandon  his  belief  in  Presbyterianism,  Congre 
gationalism,  Methodism,  or  some  other  ism  before  he 
would  be  found  worthy  of  being  joined  in  the  marriage 
relation  to  his  Episcopalian  bride. 

The  "Ways  of  the  Hour"  was  the  last  work  that 
Cooper  published.  Everything  he  now  wrote  was  writ 
ten  with  a  special  object.  The  design  of  this  was  to 
attack  trial  by  jury ;  but  he  was  not  prevented  by  that 
fact  from  discussing  several  other  matters  that  were  up 
permost  in  his  mind.  The  incidents  of  the  story  utterly 
destroyed  the  effectiveness  of  the  lesson  that  it  was  in 
tended  to  convey.  It  would  be  dignifying  too  much 
many  of  the  events  related  in  it  to  say  that  they  are 
improbabilities:  they  are  simply  impossibilities.  The 
"  Ways  of  the  Hour  "  was,  however,  like  the  preceding 
novels,  often  full  of  suggestive  remarks,  on  many  other 
points  than  trial  by  jury.  It  showed  in  numerous  in 
stances  the  working  of  an  acute,  vigorous,  and  aggres 
sive  intellect.  The  good  qualities  it  has  need  not  be 
denied :  only  they  are  not  the  good  qualities  that  belong 
to  fiction. 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  261 

The  pecuniary  profits  that  his  works  brought  him 
during  this  latter  period  of  his  life  there  are,  perhaps, 
no  means  of  ascertaining.  Much  of  the  literary  activity 
of  his  last  years  was  due  to  necessity  rather  than  to  in 
spiration.  He  had  been  concerned  for  a  long  time  in 
company  with  a  number  of  men  of  business  in  a  series  of 
cotton  speculations,  and  in  others  connected  with  West 
ern  lands.  In  both  cases  the  ventures  were  unprofit 
able,  and  the  desire  of  retrieving  his  losses  was  one  of 
the  causes  that  led  to  this  constant  literary  production. 
There  were  other  circumstances,  too,  besides  his  mere  un 
popularity  that  had  tended  to  reduce  the  amount  gained 
from  what  he  wrote.  After  1838,  the  income  received 
from  England  naturally  fell  off,  in  consequence  of  the 
change  in  the  law  of  copyright.  The  act  of  Parliament 
passed  in  that  year  provided  that  no  foreign  author  out 
side  of  British  dominions  should  have  copyright  in 
those  dominions  unless  the  country  to  which  he  be 
longed  gave  copyright  to  the  English  author.  No  fault 
can  be  found  with  this  legislation  on  the  score  of  justice. 
The  value  of  anything  produced  by  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States  fell  at  once  as  a  necessary  consequence  of 
the  want  of  protection  against  piracy.  The  British  pub 
lisher,  not  from  any  motive  of  mere  personal  gain,  but 
from  an  unselfish  desire  by  retaliatory  proceedings  to 
bring  about  a  better  state  of  things,  went  speedily  to 
work  to  plunder  the  American  author  who  favored  in 
ternational  copyright  in  order  to  show  his  disgust  at  the 
conduct  of  the  American  publisher  who  opposed  it.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  Cooper's  novels  were  from  that  time 
published  in  Great  Britain,  in  cheap  form,  and  sold  at  a 
cheap  price.  Such  reprints  could  not  but  lower  the 
amount  which  could  be  offered  for  his  work.  Newspa- 


262*  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

per  reports,  the  correctness  of  which  can  neither  be 
affirmed  nor  denied,  frequently  mention  that  for  the 
copyright  of  each  of  his  earlier  novels  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  receiving  a  thousand  guineas.  We  know  posi 
tively  that  for  his  later  tales,  as  fast  as  they  were  writ 
ten,  Bentley,  his  London  publisher,  usually  paid  him 
three  hundred  pounds  each. 

In  America  circumstances  of  another  kind  contrib 
uted  to  reduce  the  profits  from  his  works.  Most  of  them 
were  published  at  a  price  that  would  have  required  an 
immense  sale  to  make  them  remunerative  at  all.  It  was 
about  1840  that  two  weekly  newspapers  in  New  York, 
"  The  New  World,"  and  «  The  Brother  Jonathan,"  had 
begun  the  practice  of  reprinting  in  their  columns  the 
writings  of  the  most  popular  novelists  which  were  then 
coming  out  in  England.  As  soon  as  these  were  finished 
they  were  brought  out  in  parts  and  sold  at  a  small  price. 
This  piracy  was  so  successful  that  imitators  sprang  up 
everywhere.  The  large  publishing  houses  were  soon 
obliged  to  follow  in  the  wake  of  the  newspaper  estab 
lishments.  The  reign  of  the  so-called  "  cheap  and 
nasty  "  literature  began.  The  productions  of  the  greatest 
foreign  novelists  were  sold  for  a  song.  The  native 
writer  was  subjected  to  a  competition  which  forced  him 
at  once  to  lower  his  price  or  to  go  unread.  Beginning 
with  "  Wing-and-Wing,"  the  rate  at  which  Cooper's 
works  were  published  furnishes  a  striking  commentary 
upon  the  cheap  professions  of  sympathy  with  letters 
current  in  this  country,  indicates  suggestively  the  inspir 
iting  inducements  held  out  by  the  law-making  power  to 
enter  upon  the  career  of  authorship,  and  shows  with  dis 
graceful  clearness  how  utterly  the  interests  of  the  men 
engaged  in  the  creation  of  literature  had  been  subordi- 


THE  LATER  NOVELS.  263 

nated  to  the  greed  of  those  who  traded  in  it.  The  barest 
recital  of  the  facts  makes  evident  the  nature  of  the  en 
couragement  given.  "  Wing-aud-Wing  "  was  published 
at  twenty-five  cents  a  volume.  So  were  "  Wyandotte," 
"  The  Redskins,"  "  The  Crater,"  "  Jack  Tier,"  "  The 
Oak  Openings,"  and  "  The  Sea  Lions."  The  four  vol 
umes  of  the  series  "  Afloat  and  Ashore  "  were  published 
at  thirty-seven  and  a  half  cents  each ;  and  at  the  same 
rate  "  Sataustoe"  came  out,  and  also  "Ned  Myers."  It 
was  not  till  Cooper's  last  work  appeared  that  the  price 
went  up  as  high  as  a  dollar  and  twenty-five  cents. 
This  was  in  one  volume ;  but  it  is  to  be  kept  in  mind, 
in  considering  these  prices,  that  in  America  his  novels 
regularly  appeared  in  two. 

One  further  experiment  Cooper  made  in  a  new  field ; 
and  with  it  the  record  of  his  literary  life  closes.  In 
the  year  1850  he  tried  the  stage.  On  the  18th  of  June 
a  comedy  written  by  him  was  brought  out  at  Burton's 
Theatre,  New  York.  It  was  entitled,  "  Upside  Down  ; 
or,  Philosophy  in  Petticoats."  For  the  three  nights  fol 
lowing  the  18th  it  was  acted,  and  was  then  withdrawn. 
It  has  never  been  played  since,  nor  has  it  been  pub 
lished. 

All  these  years  he  spent  his  time  mainly  in  his  home 
at  Cooperstown.  There,  besides  the  pleasure  he  found 
in  the  improvement  of  the  extensive  grounds  about  his 
house,  he  gave  full  vent  to  that  latent  passion  for  wasting 
money  in  agricultural  operations,  which  seems  to  be  one 
of  the  most  widely-extended  peculiarities  of  the  English 
race.  On  the  eastern  shore  of  the  lake,  about  a  mile 
from  the  village,  he  bought  a  farm  of  about  two  hundred 
acres  which  he  called  the  "  Chalet."  The  view  from  it 
was  exceedingly  beautiful,  looking  as  it  did  down  the 


264  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

Valley  of  the  Susquehanna.  The  farm,  too,  had  its 
picturesque  and  poetical  features ;  but  unhappily  it  was 
little  adapted  to  practical  agriculture.  It  stood  on  a 
hill-side,  the  abruptness  of  which  was  only  occasionally 
relieved  by  a  few  acres  of  level  land.  Much  of  it  was 
still  covered  with  the  original  forest ;  and  a  good  deal  of 
the  cleared  land  was  full  of  stumps.  To  superintend  tho 
removal  of  these  latter  was  one  of  Cooper's  chief  re 
laxations  from  mental  labor.  It  is  a  desirable  thing  to 
do,  but  it  has  never  been  found  pecuniarily  profitable  in 
itself.  To  this  place  Cooper  daily  drove  in  the  summer 
season,  and  spent  two  or  three  hours  directing  the  oper 
ations  that  were  going  on,  finding  constantly  new  ways 
to  spend  money,  and  doubtless  pleasing  himself  occa 
sionally  with  the  fancy  that  the  farm  would  at  some  time 
pay  expenses.  And  in  the  best  sense  it  did  pay  ex 
penses.  It  gave  regular  diversion  to  his  life ;  it  minis 
tered  constantly  to  his  enjoyment  of  the  beautiful  in 
scenery;  and  it  occupied  his  thoughts  with  perpetual 
projects  of  improvement  for  which  its  character  fur 
nished  unlimited  opportunities.  He  had  bought  it  for 
pleasure  and  not  for  profit ;  and  in  that  it  yielded  him  a 
full  return  for  the  money  invested. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

1850-1851. 

COOPER,  at  the  time  he  published  his  last  novel,  was 
more  than  sixty  years  of  age ;  but  as  yet  he  showed  no 
traces  of  physical  or  intellectual  decay.  His  literary  ac 
tivity  remained  unabated,  though  he  was  now  purposing 
to  direct  it  to  other  fields  than  that  of  fiction.  A  de 
cided  change  was  likewise  taking  place  in  the  estimation 
in  which  he  was  held  by  the  public.  He  had  not  be 
come  popular,  to  be  sure ;  but  he  had  become  less  un 
popular.  There  was,  moreover,  a  feeling  pretty  gener 
ally  prevalent  that  he  had  been  hardly  used ;  that  in 
many  respects  he  had  been  a  wronged  and  persecuted 
man.  The  ranks  of  those  who  had  remained  faithful  to 
him  during  all  these  years  of  obloquy  were  beginning 
to  be  largely  swelled  from  the  newer  generation  which 
had  neither  part  in,  nor  knowledge  of,  the  bitter  contro 
versies  in  which  he  had  been  concerned.  His  friends 
were  purposing  to  give  a  public  dinner  in  his  honor  in 
order  to  show  their  regard  for  him  as  a  man,  and  their 
appreciation  of  the  credit  his  writings  had  brought  to 
his  country.  Before  this  project  could  be  carried  into 
effect,  the  illness  had  overtaken  him  which  ended  in 
death. 

On  the  other  hand  time  had,  in  some  respect,  molli 
fied  his  own  feelings.  Many  things  had  occurred  to 
make  him  more  gentle  and  forbearing.  Much  of  this 


266  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

was  certainly  due  to  the  increasing  strength  of  his  re 
ligious  convictions,  which  as  has  been  noticed,  steadily 
deepened  during  his  last  years.  It  is  clear  from  much 
that  appears  in  his  later  novels  that  these  had,  to  some 
extent,  been  perverted  from  their  legitimate  effect,  and 
had  made  him  at  intervals  illiberal  and  even  bitter. 
But  they  had  brought  calm  to  an  excitable  nature,  and 
healing  to  a  spirit  which  had  been  sometimes  sorely 
wounded.  In  1851  he  carried  out  a  plan  long  before 
determined  upon.  In  March  of  that  year  he  became  a 
communicant  in  the  Episcopal  church,  and  in  the  fol 
lowing  July  was  confirmed  by  his  brother-in-law,  Bishop 
DeLancey. 

In  the  summer  of  1850  he  was  in  New  York  city. 
"  At  this  time,"  says  Bryant,  "  his  personal  appearance 
was  remarkable.  He  seemed  in  perfect  health,  and  in 
the  highest  energy  and  activity  of  his  faculties.  I  have 
scarcely  seen  any  man  at  that  period  of  life  on  whom 
his  years  sat  more  lightly."  But  even  then  the  disease 
which  was  to  destroy  him  wras  lurking  in  his  system. 
In  the  beginning  of  April,  1851,  he  came  again  to  New 
York  partly  for  medical  advice,  and  his  changed  appear 
ance  struck  all  his  friends  with  surprise  and  sorrow. 
The  digestive  organs  were  impaired,  the  liver  was  tor 
pid,  and  a  general  feebleness  had  taken  the  place  of  the 
the  vigor  for  which  he  had  previously  been  distinguished. 
He  remained  several  weeks  in  the  city  and  then  returned 
to  Cooperstown.  That  place  he  never  left  again.  The 
disease  made  rapid  advances,  and  at  last  became  a  con 
firmed  dropsy.  In  the  latter  part  of  August  his  old  and 
intimate  friend,  Dr.  Francis,  of  New  York,  went  up  to 
Cooper's  country  home  to  make  a  full  examination  of 
his  condition.  lie  found  him  worse,  if  anything,  than 


UI8  LAST  YEARS.  267 

he  expected.  There  was,  in  fact,  little  hope  of  recov 
ery.  The  physician  told  him  frankly  of  the  danger  he 
was  in,  and  of  the  possibilities  of  restoration  to  health 
that  still  existed.  Though  his  own  perception  of  his 
condition  was  too  clear  to  make  the  announcement  a 
shock,  it  could  not  have  been  other  than  a  disappoint 
ment.  He  had  many  projects  still  unfulfilled.  Plans  of 
new  works  were  in  his  mind ;  and  one  of  them  on  the 
"  Towns  of  Manhattan,"  partly  written,  was  at  that  very 
time  in  press.  But  he  met  the  news  as  bravely  as  he 
had  the  various  troubles  of  his  eventful  life.  After  Dr. 
Francis'  departure  the  malady  steadily  increased,  and  it 
soon  became  evident  that  expectation  of  recovery  must 
be  given  up.  During  all  these  days  he  was  quiet  and 
cheerful,  and  his  last  hours  were  full  of  peace  and  hope. 
On  Sunday,  the  14th  of  September,  1851,  at  half-past 
one  in  the  afternoon,  he  died.  Had  he  lived  one  day 
longer  he  would  have  been  sixty-two  years  old.  In  a 
little  more  than  four  mouths  his  wife  followed  him  to 
the  grave.  They  lie  side  by  side  in  the  grounds  of 
Christ's  Church  at  Cooperstown. 

His  property  was  found,  at  his  death,  to  be  much  im 
paired  in  value.  Enough  was  left  to  insure  the  family 
a  competency,  but  it  became  necessary  to  give  up  the 
mansion  where  so  many  years  of  his  life  had  been 
passed.  The  dwelling  went,  accordingly,  into  other 
hands,  and  it  was  not  a  long  while  after  that  it  burned 
down.  Part  of  the  grounds  have  since  become  public 
property,  and  that  which  is  not  so  employed  is  little 
better  than  a  waste. 

The  death  of  men  of  letters  did  not  excite  at  that 
time  the  attention  which  interest  or  fashion  pays  to  it 
now.  Coopers  relations,  too,  with  many,  had  been  of 


268  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

so  strained  a  nature  that  it  was  hardly  to  be  expected 
that  his  loss  should  arouse  universal  regret.  Yet  it  was 
felt  on  all  hands  that  a  great  man  had  fallen.  On  the 
25th  of  September,  a  few  days  after  his  death,  a  meet 
ing  was  held  in  the  City  Hall,  New  York,  with  the  in 
tent  to  make  a  suitable  demonstration  of  respect  to  his 
memory.  Washington  Irving  presided,  and  a  commit 
tee  of  prominent  men  of  letters  was  appointed  to  carry 
into  effect  the  measures  for  which  the  gathering  had 
been  called.  A  discourse  on  the  life,  genius,  and  writ 
ings  of  the  dead  author  was  fixed  upon  to  be  given  by 
his  intimate  friend,  William  Cullen  Bryant.  On  the 
25th  of  February,  1852,  this  address  was  delivered  at 
Metropolitan  Hall  before  the  most  cultivated  audience 
the  city  could  boast.  With  a  singular  ineptitude,  not 
generally  appreciated  at  the  time,  Daniel  Webster  was 
selected  to  preside.  He  had  nothing  to  say,  and  he  said 
it  wretchedly.  It  was  doubtful  if  he  had  ever  read  a 
single  work  of  the  novelist.  That,  at  least,  is  a  natural 
inference  from  his  speech,  which,  furthermore,  is  little 
else  than  a  collection  of  dreary  platitudes.  It  was  after 
this  fashion  that  he  paid  his  respects  to  the  man  whose 
memory  they  had  come  together  to  honor.  "  As  far  as 
I  am  acquainted,"  he  remarked,  "  with  the  writings  of 
Mr.  Cooper,  they  uphold  good  sentiments,  sustain  good 
morals,  and  maintain  just  taste  ;  and  after  saying  this  I 
have  next  to  add,  that  all  his  writings  are  truly  patriotic 
and  American  throughout  and  throughout."  This  did 
not  even  reach  the  respectability  of  commonplace,  and 
the  commonplaces  to  which  Webster  soared  in  other 
parts  of  his  speech  did  not  have  the  poor  merit  of  being 
sonorous.  Still  he  looked  so  majestic  and  imposing  that 
most  of  his  audience  were  profoundly  impressed  by  the 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS.    269 

justness  and  value  of  his  observations.  Any  failure, 
however,  on  his  part  in  the  matter  of  what  he  said,  was 
more  than  made  up  by  the  address  delivered  by  Byrant. 
It  is  not  very  long;  it  contains  a  few  errors  of  fact,  es 
pecially  in  the  dates ;  but  it  is  not  only  the  most  elo 
quent  tribute  that  has  been  paid  to  the  dead  author,  it 
has  also  remained  during  all  these  years  the  fullest  ac 
count  of  the  life  he  lived,  and  the  work  he  did. 

More  than  sixty  years  have  gone  by  since  Cooper  be 
gan  to  write ;  more  than  thirty  since  he  ceased  to  live. 
If  his  reputation  has  not  advanced  during  the  period 
that  has  passed  since  his  death,  it  has  certainly  not  re 
ceded.  Nor  does  it  seem  likely  to  undergo  much  change 
in  the  future.  The  world  has  pretty  well  made  up  its 
mind  as  to  the  value  of  his  work.  The  estimate  in 
which  it  is  held  will  not  be  materially  raised  or  lowered 
by  anything  which  criticism  can  now  utter.  This  will 
itself  be  criticised  for  being  too  obvious ;  for  it  can  do 
little  but  repeat,  with  variation  of  phrase,  what  has  been 
constantly  said  and  often  better  said  before.  There  is, 
however,  now  a  chance  of  its  meeting  with  fairer  consid 
eration.  The  cloud  of  depreciation  which  seems  to  set 
tle  upon  the  achievement  of  every  man  of  letters  soon 
after  death,  it  was  Cooper's  fortune  to  encounter  during 
life.  This  was  partly  due  to  the  literary  reaction  which 
had  taken  place  against  the  form  of  fiction  he  adopted, 
but  far  more  to  the  personal  animosities  he  aroused. 
We  are  now  far  enough  removed  from  the  prejudices 
and  passions  of  his  time  to  take  an  impartial  view  of 
the  man,  and  to  state,  without  bias  for  or  against  him, 
the  conclusions  to  which  the  world  has  very  generally 
come  as  to  his  merits  and  defects  as  a  writer. 


270  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

At  the  outset  it  is  to  be  said  that  Cooper  is  one  of 
the  people's  novelists  as  opposed  to  the  novelists  of 
highly-cultivated  men.  This  does  not  imply  that  he  has 
not  been,  and  is  not  still,  a  favorite  with  many  of  the 
latter.  The  names  of  those,  indeed,  who  have  ex 
pressed  excessive  admiration  for  his  writings  far  sur 
pass  in  reputation  and  even  critical  ability  those  who 
have  spoken  of  him  depreciatingly.  Still  the  general 
statement  is  true  that  it  is  with  the  masses  he  has  found 
favor  chiefly.  The  sale  of  his  works  has  known  no 
abatement  since  his  death.  It  goes  on  constantly  to  an 
extent  that  will  surprise  any  one  who  has  not  made  an 
examination  of  this  particular  point.  His  tales  continue 
to  be  read  or  rather  devoured  by  the  uncultivated  many. 
They  are  often  contemptuously  criticised  by  the  culti 
vated  few,  who  sometimes  affect  to  look  upon  any  admi 
ration  they  may  have  once  had  for  them  as  belonging 
exclusively  to  the  undisciplined  taste  of  childhood. 

This  state  of  things  may  be  thought  decisive  against 
the  permanent  reputation  of  the  novelist.  The  opinion 
of  the  cultivated  few,  it  is  said,  must  prevail  over  that  of 
the  uncultivated  many.  True  as  this  is  in  certain  cases, 
it  is  just  as  untrue  in  others.  It  is,  in  fact,  often  ab 
surdly  false  when  the  general  reading  public  represents 
the  uncultivated  many.  On  matters  which  come  legiti 
mately  within  the  scope  of  their  judgment  the  verdict  of 
the  great  mass  of  men  is  infinitely  more  trustworthy 
than  that  of  any  small  body  of  men,  no  matter  how  cul 
tivated.  Of  plenty  of  that  narrow  judgment  of  select 
circles  which  mistakes  the  cackle  of  its  little  coterie  for 
the  voice  of  the  world,  Cooper  was  made  the  subject, 
and  sometimes  the  victim,  during  his  lifetime.  There 
were  any  number  of  writers,  now  never  heard  of,  who 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.    271 

were  going  to  outlive  him,  according  to  literary  prophecies 
then  current,which  had  every  thing  oracular  in  their  utter 
ance  except  ambiguity.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the 
notices  of  his  stories  of  the  sea.  As  I  have  turned  over 
the  pages  of  defunct  criticism,  I  have  come  across  the 
names  of  several  authors  whose  tales  descriptive  of  ocean 
life  were,  according  to  many  contemporary  estimates, 
immensely  superior  to  anything  of  the  kind  Cooper  had 
produced  or  could  produce.  Some  of  these  writers  en 
joyed  for  a  time  high  reputation.  Most  of  them  are 
now  as  utterly  forgotten  as  the  men  who  celebrated 
their  praises. 

But  however  unfair  as  a  whole  may  be  the  estimate 
of  cultivated  men  in  any  particular  case,  their  adverse 
opinion  is  pretty  certain  to  have  a  foundation  of  justice 
in  its  details.  This  is  unquestionably  true  in  the  pres 
ent  instance.  Characteristics  there  are  of  Cooper's  writ 
ings  which  would  and  do  repel  many.  Defects  exist 
both  in  manner  and  matter.  Part  of  the  unfavorable 
judgment  he  has  received  is  due  to  the  prevalence  of 
minor  faults,  disagreeable  rather  than  positively  bad. 
These,  in  many  cases,  sprang  from  the  quantity  of  what 
he  did  and  the  rapidity  with  which  he  did  it.  The 
amount  that  Cooper  wrote  is  something  that  in  fairness 
must  always  be  taken  into  consideration.  He  who  has 
crowded  into  a  single  volume  the  experience  of  a  life 
must  concede  that  he  stands  at  great  advantage  as  re 
gards  matters  of  detail,  and  especially  as  regards  perfec 
tion  of  form,  with  him  who  has  manifested  incessant  lit 
erary  activity  in  countless  ways.  It  was  the  immense 
quantity  that  Cooper  wrote  and  the  haste  and  inevitable 
carelessness  which  wait  upon  great  production,  that  are 
responsible  for  many  of  his  minor  faults.  Incongruities 


272  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

in  the  conception  of  his  tales,  as  well  as  in  their  execu 
tion,  often  make  their  appearance.  Singular  blunders 
can  be  found  which  escaped  even  his  own  notice  in  the 
final  revision  he  gave  his  works.  In  "  Mercedes  of  Cas 
tile,"  for  instance,  the  heroine  presents  her  lover  on  his 
outward  passage  with  a  cross  framed  of  sapphire  stones.N 
These,  she  tells  him,  are  emblems  of  fidelity.  When 
she  comes  to  inquire  about  them  after  his  return  she 
speaks  of  them  as  turquoise.  Again,  in  "  The  Deer- 
slayer  "  three  castles  of  a  curious  set  of  chessmen  are 
given  in  one  part  of  the  story  to  the  Indians.  Later  on, 
two  other  castles  of  the  same  set  make  their  appearance. 
This  is  a  singular  mistake  for  Cooper  to  overlook,  for 
chess  was  a  game  of  which  he  was  very  fond. 

In  the  matter  of  language  this  rapidity  and  careless 
ness  often  degenerated  into  downright  slovenliness.  It 
was  bad  enough  to  resort  to  the  same  expedients  and  to 
repeat  the  same  scenes.  Still  from  this  charge  few  pro 
lific  novelists  can  be  freed.  But  in  Cooper  there  were 
often  words  and  phrases  which  he  worked  to  death.  In 
"  The  Wept  of  Wish- ton- Wish  "  there  is  so  perpetual  a 
reference  to  the  quiet  way  in  which  the  younger  Heath- 
cote  talks  and  acts  that  it  has  finally  anything  but  a 
quieting  effect  upon  the  reader's  feelings.  In  "  The 
Headsman  of  Berne,"  "  warm  "  in  the  sense  of  "  well- 
to-do,"  a  disagreeable  usage  at  best,  occurs  again  and 
again,  until  the  feeling  of  disagreeableness  it  inspires  at 
first  becomes  at  last  positive  disgust.  This  trick  of  rep 
etition  reaches  the  climax  of  meaninglessness  in  "  The 
Ways  of  the  Hour."  During  the  trial  scene  the  judge 
repeats  on  every  pretext  and  as  a  part  of  almost  every 
speech,  the  sentence  "  time  is  precious  ;  "  and  it  is  about 
the  only  point  on  which  he  is  represented  as  taking  a 
clear  and  decided  stand. 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.    273 

There  were  other  faults  in  the  matter  of  language 
that  to  some  will  seem  far  worse.  I  confess  to  feeling 
little  admiration  for  that  grammar-school  training  which 
consists  in  teaching  the  pupil  how  much  more  he  knows 
about  our  tongue  than  the  great  masters  who  have 
moulded  it ;  which  practically  sets  up  the  claim  that  the 
only  men  who  are  able  to  write  English  properly  are 
the  men  who  have  never  shown  any  capacity  to  write  it 
at  all  ;  and  which  seeks,  in  a  feeble  way,  to  cramp  usage 
by  setting  up  distinctions  that  never  existed,  and  lay 
ing  down  rules  which  it  requires  uncommon  ignorance 
of  the  language  to  make  or  to  heed.  Still  there  are 
lengths  to  which  the  most  strenuous  stickler  for  freedom 
of  speech  does  not  venture  to  go.  There  are  prejudices 
in  favor  of  the  exclusive  legitimacy  of  certain  construc 
tions  that  he  feels  bound  to  respect.  He  recognizes,  as 
a  general  rule,  for  instance,  that  when  the  subject  is  in 
the  singular  it  is  desirable  that  the  verb  should  be  in 
the  same  number.  For  conventionalities  of  syntax  of 
this  kind  Cooper  was  very  apt  to  exhibit  disregard,  not 
to  say  disdain.  He  too  often  passed  the  bounds  that  di 
vide  liberty  from  license.  It  scarcely  needs  to  be  as 
serted  that  in  most  of  these  cases  the  violation  of  idiom 
arose  from  haste  or  carelessness.  But  there  were  some 
blunders  which  can  only  be  imputed  to  pure  unadulter 
ated  ignorance.  Ho  occasionally  used  words  in  senses 
unknown  to  past  or  present  use.  He  sometimes  em 
ployed  grammatical  forms  that  belong  to  no  period  in 
the  history  of  the  English  language.  A  curious  illustra 
tion  of  a  word  combining  in  itself  both  these  errors  is 
wists,  a  verb,  in  the  third  person,  singular.  If  this  be 
anything  it  should  be  wist,  the  preterite  of  wot,  and 
should  have  accordingly  the  meaning  "  knew."  Cooper 
18 


274  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE  COOPER, 

uses  it  in  fact  as  a  present  with  the  sense  of  "  wishes." 
Far  worse  than  occasional  errors  in  the  use  of  words  are 
errors  of  construction.  His  sentences  are  sometimes  in 
volved  in  the  most  hopeless  way,  and  the  efforts  of 
grammar  to  untie  the  knot  by  any  means  known  to  it 
serve  only  to  make  conspicuous  its  own  helplessness. 

All  this  is,  in  itself,  of  slight  importance  when  set  off 
against  positive  merits.  But  it  is  constantly  forced  upon 
the  reader's  attention  by  the  fact  that  Cooper  himself 
was  exceedingly  critical  on  points  of  speech.  He  was 
perpetually  going  out  of  his  way  to  impart  bits  of  in 
formation  about  words  and  their  uses,  and  it  is  rare  that 
he  blunders  into  correct  statement  or  right  inference. 
He  often,  indeed,  in  these  matters  carried  ignorance  of 
what  he  was  talking  about,  and  confidence  in  his  own 
knowledge  of  it  to  the  extremest  verge  of  the  possible. 
He  sometimes  mistook  dialectic  or  antiquated  English  for 
classical,  and  laboriously  corrected  the  latter  by  putting 
the  former  in  parentheses  by  its  side.  In  orthography 
and  pronunciation  he  had  never  got  beyond  that  puer 
ile  conception  which  fancies  it  a  most  creditable  feat 
ure  in  a  word  that  its  sound  shall  not  be  suggested  by 
anything  in  its  spelling.  In  the  case  of  proper  names 
this  was  more  than  creditable  ;  it  was  aristocratic.  So 
in  "  The  Crater  "  great  care  is  taken  to  tell  us  that  the 
hero's  name,  though  written  Woolston,  was  pronounced 
Wooster ;  and  that  he  so  continued  to  sound  it  in  spite 
of  a  miserable  Yankee  pedagogue  who  tried  hard  to 
persuade  him  to  follow  the  spelling.  So,  again,  in  "  The 
Ways  of  the  Hour "  we  are  sedulously  informed  that 
Wilmeter  is  to  be  pronounced  Wilmington.  But  ab 
surdities  like  these  belonged  not  so  much  to  Cooper 
as  to  the  good  old  times  of  gentlemanly  ignorance  in 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL    CHARACTERISTICS.    275 

which  he  lived.  In  his  etymological  vagaries,  however, 
he  sometimes  left  his  age  far  behind.  In  "  The  Oak 
Openings  "  he  enters  upon  the  discussion  of  the  word 
"  shanty."  He  finds  the  best  explanation  of  its  origin 
is  to  suppose  it  a  corruption  of  chiente ,  a  word  which 
he  again  supposed  might  exist  in  Canadian  French,  and 
provided  it  existed  there,  he  further  supposed  that  in 
that  dialect  it  might  mean  "  dog-kennel."  The  student 
of  language,  much  hardened  to  this  sort  of  work  on  the 
part  of  men  of  letters,  can  read  with  resignation  "  this 
plausible  derivation,"  as  it  is  styled.  Cooper,  however, 
not  content  with  the  simple  glory  of  originating  it,  act 
ually  uses  throughout  the  whole  work  chiente  instead 
of  "  shanty."  This  rivals,  if  it  does  not  outdo,  the  lin 
guistic  excesses  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  cent 
uries. 

There  are  imperfections  far  more  serious  than  these 
mistakes  in  language.  He  rarely  attained  to  beauty  of 
style.  The  rapidity  with  which  he  wrote  forbids  the  idea 
that  he  ever  strove  earnestly  for  it.  Even  the  essential 
but  minor  grace  of  clearness  is  sometimes  denied  him. 
He  had  not,  in  truth,  the  instincts  of  the  born  literary 
artist.  Satisfied  with  producing  the  main  effect,  he  was 
apt  to  be  careless  in  the  consistent  working  out  of  details. 
Plot,  in  any  genuine  sense  of  the  word  "  plot,"  is  to  be 
found  in  very  few  of  his  stories.  He  seems  rarely  to 
have  planned  all  the  events  beforehand ;  or,  if  he  did, 
anything  was  likely  to  divert  him  from  his  original  in 
tention.  The  incidents  often  appear  to  have  been  sug 
gested  as  the  tale  was  in  process  of  composition.  Hence 
the  constant  presence  of  incongruities  with  the  fre 
quent  result  of  bringing  about  a  bungling  and  incom 
plete  development.  The  introduction  of  certain  charac- 


276  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

ters  is  sometimes  so  heralded  as  to  lead  us  to  expect 
from  them  far  more  than  they  actually  perform.  Thus, 
in  "  The  Two  Admirals,"  Mr.  Thomas  Wychecombe  is 
brought  in  with  a  fullness  of  description  that  justifies 
the  reader  in  entertaining  a  rational  expectation  of  find 
ing  in  him  a  satisfactory  scoundrel,  capable,  desperate, 
full  of  resources,  needing  the  highest  display  of  energy 
and  ability  to  be  overcome.  This  reasonable  anticipation 
is  disappointed.  At  the  very  moment  when  respectable 
determined  villainy  is  in  request,  he  fades  away  into  a 
poltroon  of  the  most  insignificant  type  who  is  not  able 
to  hold  his  own  against  an  ordinary  house-steward. 

The  prolixity  of  Cooper's  introductions  is  a  fault  so 
obvious  to  every  one  that  it  needs  here  reference  merely 
and  not  discussion.  A  similar  remark  may  be  made  as  to 
his  moralizing,  which  was  apt  to  be  cheap  and  common 
place.  He  was  much  disposed  to  waste  his  own  time 
and  to  exhaust  the  patience  of  his  reader  by  establishing 
with  great  fullness  of  demonstration  and  great  positive- 
ness  of  assertion  the  truth  of  principles  which  most  of 
the  human  race  are  humbly  content  to  regard  as  ax 
ioms.  A  greater  because  even  a  more  constantly  recur 
ring  fault  is  the  gross  improbability  to  be  found  in  the 
details  of  his  stories.  There  is  too  much  fiction  in  his 
fiction.  We  are  continually  exasperated  by  the  inade 
quacy  of  the  motive  assigned ;  we  are  irritated  by  the 
unnatural  if  not  ridiculous  conduct  of  the  characters. 
These  are  perpetually  doing  unreasonable  things,  or  do 
ing  reasonable  things  at  unsuitable  times.  They  take 
the  very  path  that  must  lead  them  into  the  danger  they 
are  seeking  to  shun.  They  engage  in  making  love  when 
they  ought  to  be  flying  for  their  lives.  His  heroes,  in 
particular,  exhibit  a  capacity  for  going  to  sleep  in  crit- 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS.     277 

ical  situations,  which  may  not  transcend  extraordinary 
human  experience,  but  does  ordinary  human  belief. 
Nor  is  improbability  always  confined  to  details.  It 
pervades  sometimes  the  central  idea  of  the  story.  In 
"  The  Bravo,"  for  instance,  the  hero  is  the  most  pious 
of  sons,  the  most  faithful  of  friends,  the  most  devoted  of 
lovers.  The  part  he  has  to  play  in  the  tale  is  to  appear 
to  be  a  cutthroat  of  the  worst  type,  without  doing  a  sin 
gle  thing  to  merit  his  reputation.  It  is  asking  too  much 
of  human  credulity  to  believe  that  a  really  good  man 
could  long  sustain  the  character  of  a  remorseless  desper 
ado  by  merely  making  faces.  This  improbability,  more 
over,  is  most  marked  in  the  tales  which  are  designed  to 
teach  a  lesson.  A  double  disadvantage  is  the  result.  The 
story  is  spoiled  for  the  sake  of  the  moral;  and  the  moral 
is  lost  by  the  grossly  improbable  nature  of  the  story.  In 
the  last  novel  Cooper  wrote  this  is  strikingly  seen.  He 
who  can  credit  the  possibility  of  the  events  occurring 
that  are  told  in  "  The  Ways  of  the  Hour  "  must  give  up 
at  the  same  time  his  belief  in  the  maxim  that  truth  is 
stranger  than  fiction. 

It  has  now  become  a  conventional  criticism  of  Cooper 
that  his  characters  are  conventional.  Such  a  charge 
can  be  admitted  without  seriously  disparaging  the  value 
of  his  work.  In  the  kind  of  fiction  to  which  his  writ 
ings  belong,  the  persons  are  necessarily  so  subordinate 
to  the  events  that  nearly  all  novelists  of  this  class  have 
been  subjected  to  this  same  criticism.  So  regularly  is 
it  made,  indeed,  that  Scott  when  he  wrote  a  review  of 
some  of  his  own  tales  for  the  "  Quarterly  "  felt  obliged 
to  adopt  it  in  speaking  of  himself.  He  describes  his  he 
roes  as  amiable,  insipid  young  men,  the  sort  of  pattern 
people  that  nobody  cares  a  farthing  about.  Untrue  as 


278  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE  COOPER. 

this  is  of  many  of  Scott's  creations,  it  is  unquestionably 
true  of  the  higher  characters  that  Cooper  introduces. 
They  are  often  described  in  the  most  laudatory  terms ; 
but  it  is  little  they  do  that  makes  them  worthy  of  the 
epithets  with  which  they  are  honored.  Their  talk  is 
often  of  a  kind  not  known  to  human  society.  One  pe 
culiarity  is  especially  noticeable.  A  stiffness,  not  to  say 
an  appearance  of  affectation  is  often  given  to  the  con 
versation  by  the  use  of  thou  and  thee.  This  was  proba 
bly  a  survival  in  Cooper  of  the  Quakerism  of  his  an 
cestors  ;  for  he  sometimes  used  it  in  his  private  letters. 
But  since  the  action  of  his  stories  was  in  nearly  all 
cases  laid  in  a  period  in  which  the  second  person  singu 
lar  had  become  obsolete  in  ordinary  speech,  an  unnatu 
ral  character  is  given  to  the  dialogue,  which  removes  it 
still  farther  from  the  language  of  real  life. 

His  failure  in  characterization  was  undoubtedly  great 
est  in  the  women  he  drew.  Cooper's  ardent  admirers 
have  always  resented  this  charge.  Each  one  of  them 
points  to  some  single  heroine  that  fulfills  the  highest 
requirements  that  criticism  could  demand.  It  seems  to 
me  that  close  study  of  his  writings  must  confirm  the 
opinion  generally  entertained.  All  his  utterances  show 
that  the  theoretical  view  he  had  of  the  rights,  the  du 
ties,  and  the  abilities  of  women,  were  of  the  most  nar 
row  and  conventional  type.  Unhappily  it  was  a  limi 
tation  of  his  nature  that  he  could  not  invest  with  charm 
characters  with  whom  he  was  not  in  moral  and  intellect 
ual  sympathy.  There  was,  in  his  eyes,  but  one  praise 
worthy  type  of  womanly  excellence.  It  did  not  lie  in 
his  power  to  represent  any  other ;  on  one  occasion  he 
unconsciously  satirized  his  inability  even  to  conceive  of 
any  other.  In  "  Mercedes  of  Castile  "  the  heroine  is 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.    279 

thus  described  by  her  aunt :  "  Her  very  nature,"  she 
says,  "  is  made  up  of  religion  and  female  decorum."  It 
is  evident  that  the  author  fancied  that  in  this  commen 
dation  he  was  exhausting  praise.  These  are  the  senti 
ments  of  a  man  with  whom  devoutness  and  deportment 
have  become  the  culminating  conception  of  the  possi 
bilities  that  lie  in  the  female  character.  His  heroines 
naturally  conformed  to  his  belief.  They  are  usually 
spoken  of  as  spotless  beings.  They  are  made  up  of  re 
tiring  sweetness,  artlessness,  and  simplicity.  They  are 
timid,  shrinking,  helpless.  They  shudder  with  terror 
on  any  decent  pretext.  But  if  they  fail  in  higher  qual 
ities,  they  embody  in  themselves  all  conceivable  com 
binations  of  the  proprieties  and  minor  morals.  They 
always  give  utterance  to  the  most  unexceptionable  sen 
timents.  They  always  do  the  extremely  correct  thing. 
The  dead  perfection  of  their  virtues  has  not  the  alloy 
of  a  single  redeeming  fault.  The  reader  naturally 
wearies  of  these  uninterestingly  discreet  and  admirable 
creatures  in  fiction  as  he  would  in  real  life.  He  feels 
that  they  would  be  a  good  deal  more  attractive  if  they 
were  a  good  deal  less  angelic.  With  all  their  faultless- 
ness,  moreover,  they  do  not  attain  an  ideal  which  is 
constantly  realized  by  their  living,  but  faulty  sisters. 
They  do  not  show  the  faith,  the  devotion,  the-  self-for- 
getfuluess,  and  self-sacrifice  which  women  exhibit  daily 
without  being  conscious  that  they  have  done  anything 
especially  creditable.  They  experience,  so  far  as  their 
own  words  and  acts  furnish  evidence  of  their  feelings,  a 
sort  of  lukewarm  emotion  which  they  dignify  with  the 
name  of  love.  But  they  not  merely  suspect  without 
the  slightest  provocation,  they  give  up  the  men  to  whom 
they  have  pledged  the  devotion  of  their  lives,  for  rea- 


280  JAMES  FEN  I  MORE   COOPER. 

sons  for  which  no  one  would  think  of  abandoning  an  or 
dinary  acquaintance.  In  "  The  Spy  "  the  heroine  dis 
trusts  her  lover's  integrity  because  another  woman  does 
not  conceal  her  fondness  for  him.  In  "  The  Heiden- 
mauer  "  one  of  the  female  characters  resigns  the  man 
she  loves  because  on  one  occasion,  when  heated  by  wine 
and  maddened  by  passion,  he  had  done  violence  to  the 
sacred  elements.  There  was  never  a  woman  in  real  life, 
whose  heart  and  brain  were  sound,  that  conformed  her 
conduct  to  a  model  so  contemptible.  It  is  just  to  say  of 
Cooper  that  as  he  advanced  in  years  he  improved  upon 
this  feeble  conception.  The  female  characters  of  his 
earlier  tales  are  never  able  to  do  anything  successfully 
but  to  faint.  In  his  later  ones  they  are  given  more 
strength  of  mind  as  well  as  nobility  of  character.  But 
at  best,  the  height  they  reach  is  little  loftier  than  that  of 
the  pattern  woman  of  the  regular  religious  novel.  The 
reader  cannot  help  picturing  for  all  of  them  the  same 
dreary  and  rather  inane  future.  He  is  as  sure,  as  if 
their  career  had  been  actually  unrolled  before  his  eyes, 
of  the  part  they  will  perform  in  life.  They  will  all  be 
come  leading  members  of  Dorcas  societies  ;  they  will 
find  perpetual  delight  in  carrying  to  the  poor  bundles  of 
tracts  and  packages  of  tea ;  they  will  scour  the  high 
ways  and  by-ways  for  dirty,  ragged,  hatless,  shoeless, 
and  godless  children,  whom  they  will  hale  into  the  Sun- 
da}r-school ;  they  will  shine  with  unsurpassed  skill  in 
the  manufacture  of  slippers  for  the  rector ;  they  will 
exhibit  a  fiery  enthusiasm  in  the  decoration  and  adorn 
ment  of  the  church  at  Christmas  and  Easter  festivals. 
Far  be  the  thought  that  would  deny  praise  to  the  mild 
raptures  and  delicate  aspirations  of  gentle  natures  such 
as  Cooper  drew.  But  in  novels,  at  least,  one  longs  for 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.    281 

a  ruddier  life  than  flows  in  the  veins  of  these  pale, 
bleached-out  personifications  of  the  proprieties.  Women 
like  them  may  be  far  more  useful  members  of  society 
than  the  stormier  characters  of  fiction  that  are  dear  to 
the  carnal-minded.  They  may  very  possibly  be  far  more 
agreeable  to  live  with  ;  but  they  are  not  usually  the 
women  for  whom  men  are  willing  or  anxious  to  die. 

These  are  imperfections  that  have  led  to  the  undue 
depreciation  of  Cooper  among  many  highly  cultivated 
men.  Taken  by  themselves  they  might  seem  enough  to 
ruin  his  reputation  beyond  redemption.  It  is  a  proof  of 
his  real  greatness  that  he  triumphs  over  defects  which 
would  utterly  destroy  the  fame  of  a  writer  of  inferior 
power.  It  is  with  novels  as  with  men.  There  are  those 
with  great  faults  which  please  us  and  impress  us  far 
more  than  those  in  which  the  component  parts  are  bet 
ter  balanced.  Whatever  its  other  demerits,  Cooper's  best 
work  never  sins  against  the  first  law  of  fictitious  compo 
sition,  that  the  story  shall  be  full  of  sustained  interest. 
It  has  power,  and  power  always  fascinates,  even  though 
accompanied  with  much  that  would  naturally  excite  re 
pulsion  or  dislike.  Moreover,  poorly  as  he  sometimes 
told  his  story,  he  had  a  story  to  tell.  The  permanence 
and  universality  of  his  reputation  are  largely  due  to  this 
fact.  In  many  modern  creations  full  of  subtle  charm 
and  beauty,  the  narrative,  the  material  framework  of 
the  fiction,  has  been  made  so  subordinate  to  the  delinea 
tion  of  character  and  motive,  that  the  reader  ceases  to 
feel  much  interest  in  what  men  do  in  the  study  which  is 
furnished  him  of  why  they  do  it.  In  this  highly-rare 
fied  air  of  philosophic  analysis,  incident  and  event 
wither  and  die.  Work  of  this  kind  is  apt  to  have 
within  its  sphere  an  unbounded  popularity ;  but  its 


282  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

sphere  is  limited,  and  can  never  include  a  tithe  of  that 
vast  public  for  which  Cooper  wrote  and  which  has  al 
ways  cherished  and  kept  alive  his  memory,  while  that 
of  men  of  perhaps  far  finer  mould  has  quite  faded  away. 
It  is  only  fair,  also,  to  judge  him  by  his  successes  and 
not  by  his  failures  ;  by  the  work  he  did  best,  and  not 
by  what  he  did  moderately  well.  His  strength  lies  in 
the  description  of  scenes,  in  the  narration  of  events.  In  , 
the  best  of  these  he  has  had  no  superior,  and  very  few 
equals.  The  reader  will  look  in  vain  for  the  revelation 
of  sentiment,  or  for  the  exhibition  of  passion.  The  love- 
story  is  rarely  well  done  ;  but  the  love-story  plays  a 
subordinate  part  in  the  composition.  The  moment  his 
imagination  is  set  on  fire  with  the  conception  of  advent 
ure,  vividness  and  power  come  unbidden  to  his  pen. 
The  pictures  he  then  draws  are  as  real  to  the  mind  as  if 
they  were  actually  seen  by  the  eye.  It  is  doubtless  due 
to  the  fact  that  these  fits  of  inspiration  came  to  him  only 
in  certain  kinds  of  composition,  that  the  excellence  of 
many  of  his  stories  lies  largely  in  detached  scenes.  Still 
his  best  works  are  a  moving  panorama,  in  which  the 
mind  is  no  sooner  sated  with  one  picture  than  its  place 
is  taken  by  another  equally  fitted  to  fix  the  attention 
and  to  stir  the  heart.  The  genuineness  of  his  power, 
in  such  cases,  is  shown  by  the  perfect  simplicity  of  the 
agencies  employed.  There  is  no  pomp  of  words ;  there 
is  an  entire  lack  of  even  the  attempt  at  meretricious 
adornment ;  there  is  not  the  slightest  appearance  of  ef 
fort  to  impress  the  reader.  In  his  portrayal  of  these 
scenes  Cooper  is  like  nature,  in  that  he  accomplishes  his 
greatest  effects  with  the  fewest  means.  If,  as  we  are 
sometimes  told,  these  things  are  easily  done,  the  perti 
nent  question  always  remains,  why  are  they  not  done. 


HTERARY  AND  PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.    283 

Moreover,  while  in  his  higher  characters  he  has  al 
most  absolutely  failed,  he  has  succeeded  in  drawing  a 
whole  group  of  strongly-marked  lower  ones.  Birch,  in 
"  The  Spy,"  Long  Tom  Coffin  and  Boltrope  in  "  The 
Pilot,"  the  squatter  in  "The  Prairie,"  Cap  in  "The 
Pathfinder,"  and  several  others  there  are,  any  one  of 
which  would  be  enough  of  itself  to  furnish  a  respectable 
reputation  to  many  a  novelist  who  fancies  himself  far 
superior  to  Cooper  as  a  delineator  of  character.  He  had 
neither  the  skill  nor  power  to  draw  the  varied  figures 
with  which  Scott,  with  all  the  reckless  prodigality  of 
genius,  crowded  his  canvas.  Yet  in  the  gorgeous  gal 
lery  of  the  great  master  of  romantic  fiction,  alive  with 
men  and  women  of  every  rank  in  life  and  of  every  vari 
ety  of  nature,  there  is,  perhaps,  no  one  person  who  so 
profoundly  impresses  the  imagination  as  Cooper's  crown 
ing  creation,  the  man  of  the  forests.  It  is  not  that 
Scott  could  not  have  done  what  his  follower  did,  had  he 
so  chosen  ;  only  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  did  not. 
Leather-Stocking  is  one  of  the  few  original  characters, 
perhaps  the  only  great  original  character,  that  American 
fiction  has  added  to  the  literature  of  the  world. 

The  more  uniform  excellence  of  Cooper,  however, 
lies  in  the  pictures  he  gives  of  the  life  of  nature.  For 
est,  ocean,  and  stream  are  the  things  for  which  he  really 
cares  ;  and  men  and  women  are  the  accessories,  incon 
venient  and  often  uncomfortable,  that  must  be  endured. 
Of  the  former  he  speaks  with  a  loving  particularity  that 
lets  nothing  escape  the  attention.  Yet  minute  as  are 
often  his  descriptions,  he  did  not  fall  into  that  too  easily 
besetting  sin  of  the  novelist,  of  overloading  his  picture 
with  details.  To  advance  the  greater  he  sacrificed  the 
less.  Cooper  looked  at  nature  with  the  eye  of  a  painter 


284        JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

and  not  of  a  photographer.  He  fills  the  imagination 
"even  more  than  he  does  the  sight.  Hence  the  perma 
nence  of  the  impression  which  he  leaves  upon  the  mind. 
His  descriptions,  too,  produce  a  greater  effect  at  the  time 
and  cling  longer  to  the  memory  because  they  fall  natu 
rally  into  the  narrative,  and  form  a  real  part  in  the  de 
velopment  of  the  story ;  they  are  not  merely  dragged  in 
to  let  the  reader  know  what  the  writer  can  do.  "If 
Cooper,"  said  Balzac,  "had  succeeded  in  the  pain  ting  of 
character  to  the  same  extent  that  he  did  in  the  painting 
of  the  phenomena  of  nature,  he  would  have  uttered  the 
last  word  of  our  art."  This  author  I  have  quoted  sev 
eral  times,  because  far  better  even  than  George  Sand,  or 
indeed  any  who  have  criticised  the  American  novelist, 
he  seems  to  me  to  have  seen  clearly  wherein  the  latter 
succeeded  and  wherein  he  failed. 

To  this  it  is  just  to  add  one  word  which  Cooper  him 
self  would  have  regarded  as  the  highest  tribute  that 
could  be  paid  to  what  he  did.  Whatever  else  we  may 
say  of  his  writings,  their  influence  is  always  a  healthy 
influence.  Narrow  and  prejudiced  he  sometimes  was  in 
his  opinions  ;  but  he  hated  whatever  was  mean  and  low 
in  character.  It  is  with  beautiful  things  and  with  noble 
things  that  he  teaches  us  to  sympathize.  Here  are  no 
incitements  to  passion,  no  prurient  suggestions  of  sen 
sual  delights.  The  air  which  breathes  through  all  his 
fictions  is  as  pure  as  that  which  sweeps  the  streets  of  his 
mountain  home.  It  is  as  healthy  as  nature  itself.  To 
read  one  of  his  best  works  after  many  of  the  novels  of 
the  day,  is  like  passing  from  the  heated  and  stifling  at 
mosphere  of  crowded  rooms  to  the  purity,  the  freedom, 
and  the  boundlessness  of  the  forest. 

In  these  foregoing  pages  I  have  attempted  to  portray 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.    285 

an  author  who  was  something  more  than  an  author,  who 
in  any  community  would  have  been  a  marked  man  had 
he  never  written  a  word.  I  have  not  sought  to  hide  his 
foibles  and  his  faults,  his  intolerance  and  his  dogmatism, 
the  irascibility  of  his  temperament,  the  pugnacity  of  his 
nature,  the  illiberality  and  injustice  of  many  of  his  opin 
ions,  the  unreasonableness  as  well  as  the  imprudence 
of  the  course  he  often  pursued.  To  his  friends  and  ad 
mirers  these  points  will  seem  to  have  been  insisted  upon 
too  strongly.  Their  feelings  may,  to  a  certain  extent, 
be  just.  Cooper  is,  indeed,  a  striking  instance  of  how 
much  more  a  man  loses  in  the  estimation  of  the  world 
by  the  exhibition  of  foibles,  than  he  will  by  that  of 
vices.  In  this  work  one  side  of  the  life  he  lived  — 
the  side  he  presented  to  the  public  —  is  the  only  one 
that,  owing  to  circumstances,  could  be  depicted.  It 
does  not  present  the  most  attractive  features  of  his  char 
acter.  That  exclusiveness  of  temperament  which  made 
him  misjudged  by  the  many,  endeared  him  only  the 
more  to  the  few  who  were  in  a  position  to  see  how  dif 
ferent  he  was  from  what  he  seemed.  In  nothing  is  the 
essential  sweetness  of  Cooper's  nature  more  clearly 
shown  than  in  the  intense  affection  he  inspired  in  the 
immediate  circle  which  surrounded  him  or  that  was  de 
pendent  upon  him.  He  could  not  fail  to  feel  keenly  at 
times  how  utterly  his  character  and  motives  were  mis 
apprehended  and  belied.  "  As  for  myself,"  says  the  hero 
of  <%  Miles  Wallingford,"  "  I  can  safely  say  that  in 
scarce  a  circumstance  of  my  life,  that  has  brought  me 
the  least  under  the  cognizance  of  the  public,  have  I  ever 
been  judged  justly.  In  various  instances  have  I  been 
praised  for  acts  that  were  either  totally  without  any 
merit,  or  at  least  the  particular  merit  imputed  to  them ; 


286  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

while  I  have  been  even  persecuted  for  deeds  that  de 
served  praise." 

His  faults,  in  fact,  were  faults  of  temper  rather  than 
of  character.  Like  the  defects  of  his  writings,  too,  they 
lay  upon  the  surface,  and  were  seen  and  read  of  all  men. 
But  granting  everything  that  can  be  urged  against  him, 
impartial  consideration  must  award  him  an  ample  excess 
of  the  higher  virtues.  His  failings  were  the  failings  of 
a  man  who  possessed  in  the  fullest  measure  vigor  of 
mind,  intensity  of  conviction,  and  capability  of  passion. 
Disagree  with  him  one  could  hardly  help  ;  one  could 
never  fail  to  respect  him.  Many  of  the  common  charges 
against  him  are  due  to  pure  ignorance.  Of  these,  per 
haps,  the  most  common  and  the  most  absolutely  baseless 
is  the  one  which  imputes  to  him  excessive  literary  van 
ity.  Pride,  even  up  to  the  point  of  arrogance,  he  had  ; 
but  even  this  was  only  in  a  small  degree  connected  with 
his  reputation  as  an  author.  In  the  nearly  one  hundred 
volumes  he  wrote,  not  a  single  line  can  be  found  which 
implies  that  he  had  an  undue  opinion  of  his  own  pow 
ers.  On  the  contrary,  there  are  many  that  would  lead 
to  the  conclusion  that  his  appreciation  of  himself  and  of 
his  achievement  was  far  lower  than  even  the  coldest  es 
timate  would  form.  The  prevalent  misconception  on 
this  point  was  in  part  due  to  his  excessive  sensitiveness 
to  criticism  and  his  resentment  of  it  when  hostile.  It 
was  partly  due,  also,  to  a  certain  outspokenness  of  nature 
which  led  him  to  talk  of  himself  as  freely  as  he  would 
talk  of  a  stranger.  But  his  whole  conduct  showed  the 
falseness  of  any  such  impression.  From  all  the  petty 
tricks  to  which  literary  vanity  resorts,  he  was  absolutely 
free.  He  utterly  disdained  anything  that  savored  of 
manoeuvring  for  reputation.  He  indulged  in  no  devices 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS.    287 

to  revive  the  decaying  attention  of  the  public.  He 
sought  no  favors  from  those  who  were  in  a  position  to 
confer  the  notoriety  which  so  many  mistake  for  fame. 
He  went,  in  fact,  to  the  other  extreme,  and  refused  an 
aid  that  he  might  with  perfect  propriety  have  received. 
In  the  early  period  of  his  literary  career  he  wrote  a 
good  deal  for  the  "  New  York  Patriot,"  a  newspaper 
edited  by  his  intimate  friend,  Colonel  Gardiner.  He 
objected  to  the  publication  in  it  of  a  favorable  notice, 
which  had  been  prepared  of  "  The  Pioneers,"  because 
by  the  fact  of  being  an  occasional  contributor  he  was  in 
directly  connected  with  the  journal.  Accordingly  the 
criticism  was  not  inserted.  It  would  not  have  been  pos 
sible  for  him  to  offer  to  review  his  own  works,  as  Scott 
both  offered  to  do  and  did  of  the  "  Tales  of  My  Land 
lord,"  in  the  "  Quarterly."  Nor  would  he  have  acceded 
to  a  request  to  furnish  a  review  of  any  production  of  his 
own,  as  Irving  did,  in  the  same  periodical,  of  his  "  Con 
quest  of  Granada."  No  publisher  who  knew  him,  even 
slightly,  would  have  ventured  to  make  him  a  proposi 
tion  of  the  kind.  I  am  expressing  no  opinion  as  to  the 
propriety  of  these  particular  acts  ;  only  that  Cooper, 
constituted  as  he  was,  could  not  for  a  moment  have  en 
tertained  the  thought  of  doing  them. 

The  fearlessness  and  the  truthfulness  of  his  nature 
are  conspicuous  in  almost  every  incident  of  his  career. 
He  fought  for  a  principle  as  desperately  as  other  men 
fight  for  life.  The  storm  of  detraction  through  which 
he  went  never  once  shook  the  almost  haughty  independ 
ence  of  his  conduct,  or  swerved  him  in  the  slightest 
from  the  course  he  had  chosen.  The  only  thing  to 
which  he  uuquestioningly  submitted  was  the  truth.  His 


288  JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER. 

loyalty  to  that  was  of  a  kind  almost  Quixotic.  He  was 
in  later  years  dissatisfied  with  himself,  because,  in  his 
novel  of  "  The  Pilot,"  he  had  put  the  character  of  Paul 
Jones  too  high.  He  thought  that  the  hero  had  been 
credited  in  that  work  with  loftier  motives  than  those  by 
which  he  was  actually  animated.  Feelings  such  as 
these  formed  the  groundwork  of  his  character,  and 
made  him  intolerant  of  the  devious  ways  of  many  who 
were  satisfied  with  conforming  to  a  lower  code  of  moral 
ity.  There  was  a  royalty  in  his  nature  that  disdained 
even  the  semblance  of  deceit.  With  other  authors  one 
feels  that  the  man  is  inferior  to  his  work.  With  him  it 
is  the  very  reverse.  High  qualities,  such  as  these,  so 
different  from  the  easy-going  virtues  of  common  men, 
are  more  than  an  offset  to  infirmities  of  temper,  to  un 
fairness  of  judgment,  or  to  unwisdom  of  conduct.  His 
life  was  the  best  answer  to  many  of  the  charges  brought 
against  his  country  and  his  countrymen  ;  for  whatever 
he  may  have  fancied,  the  hostility  he  encountered  was 
due  far  less  to  the  matter  of  his  criticisms  than  to  their 
manner.  Against  the  common  cant,  that  in  republican 
governments  the  tyranny  of  public  sentiment  will  always 
bring  conduct  to  the  same  monotonous  level,  and  opinion 
to  the  same  subservient  uniformity,  Democracy  can  point 
to  this  dauntless  son  who  never  flinched  from  any  course 
because  it  brought  odium,  who  never  flattered  popular 
prejudices,  arid  who  never  truckled  to  a  popular  cry. 
America  has  had  among  her  representatives  of  the  irri 
table  race  of  writers  many  who  have  shown  far  more 
ability  to  get  on  pleasantly  with  their  fellows  than 
Cooper.  She  has  had  several  gifted  with  higher  spirit 
ual  insight  than  he,  with  broader  and  juster  views  of 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.    289 

life,  with  finer  ideals  of  literary  art,  and,  above  all,  with 
far  greater  delicacy  of  taste.  But  she  counts  on  the 
scanty  roll  of  her  men  of  letters  the  name  of  no  one 
who  acted  from  purer  patriotism  or  loftier  principle. 
She  finds  among  them  all  no  manlier  nature,  and  no 
more  heroic  soul. 
19 


APPENDIX. 


PARTIAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY  OF  COOPER'S  WRITINGS. 

THE  following  list  embraces  the  first  editions  of  Cooper's 
works  ;  articles  contributed  to  magazines  ;  and  two  or  three 
of  the  most  important  communications  sent  to  the  newspa 
pers.  The  titles  of  his  works,  as  published  in  England,  were 
sometimes  different  from  the  titles  used  in  the  United  States  ; 
and  whenever  this  is  the  case  the  former  are  subjoined.  It 
is  also  to  be  remarked  that  Cooper's  works  were  sometimes 
published  earlier  in  Europe  than  they  were"  in  America;  but 
the  dates  given  in  this  biography  belong  exclusively  to  the 
publication  of  his  works  in  this  country.  With  the  excep 
tion  of  No.  45  and  of  No.  67,  all  his  tales  were  originally 
published  in  two  volumes  in  America  ;  with  the  exception 
of  No.  45  they  were  originally  published  in  three  volumes 
in  England.  First  editions  of  many  of  his  novels  are  now 
rarely  to  be  found  in  libraries;  and  the  titles  given  have  in 
several  cases,  in  consequence,  been  taken  from  contempo 
rary  book  notices  and  not  from  personal  examination.  The 
titles  are  given  in  the  order  of  publication  of  the  writings. 

1.  Precaution;  a  Novel.     2  vols.     New  York:  A.  T.  Good 
rich  &  Co.,  1820. 

The  English  edition  appeared  in  March,  1821. 

2.  The  Spy;  a  Tale  of  the  Neutral  Ground.     By  the  Au 
thor  of  Precaution.     2  vols.     New  York  :  Wiley  &  Hals- 
ted,  1821. 

The  English  edition  appeared  in  March,  1822. 


APPENDIX.  291 

>3.  The  Pioneers ;  or  the  Sources  of  the  Susquehanna.     A 
Descriptive  Tale.     By  the  Author  of  Precaution.     2  vols. 
New  York  :  Charles  Wiley,  1823. 
The  English  edition  appeared  in  March,  1823. 
,4.  The  Pilot;  A  Tale  of  the  Sea.     By  the  Author  of  The 
Pioneers,  etc.     2  vols.    New  York  :  Charjes  Wiley,  1823. 
The  first  edition  bears  the  imprint  of  1823,  but  was  not 
actually  published  until  early  in  January,  1824. 

6.  Lionel  Lincoln;  or  the  Leaguer  of  Boston.     By  the  Au 
thor  of  The  Pioneers,  Pilot,  etc.     2  vols.     New  York: 
Charles  Wiley,  1825. 

>  6.  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans.  A  Narrative  of  1 757.  By  the 
Author  of  The  Pioneers.  2  vols.  Philadelphia:  H.  C. 
Carey  &  I.  Lea,  1826. 

7.  The  Prairie;   a  Tale.     By  the  Author  of  The  Pioneers 

and  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans.     2  vols.     Philadelphia : 
Carey,  Lea  &  Carey,  1827. 

8.  The  Red  Rover;   a  Tale.     By  the  Author  of  The  Pilot, 
etc.,  etc.     2  vols.     Philadelphia  :  Carey,  Lea  &  Carey, 
1828. 

9.  Notions  of  the  Americans;   Picked  up  by  a  Travelling 
Bachelor.     2  vols.     Philadelphia:  Carey,  Lea  &  Carey, 
1828. 

•  10.  The  Wept  of  Wish-ton- Wish;  a  Tale.  By  the  Author 
of  The  Pioneers,  Prairie,  etc.,  etc.  2  vols.  Philadel 
phia:  Carey,  Lea  &  Carey,  1829. 

In  England  this  was  published  under  the  title  of  "  The 
Borderers;  or  the  Wept  of  Wish- ton-Wish. "     It  has  also 
been  published  with  the  title  of  "  The  Heathcotes." 
'-  11.  The  Water- Witch;   or  the  Skimmer  of  the    Seas.     A 
Tale.     By  the  Author  of   The  Pilot,  Red  Rover,  etc., 
etc.,  etc.     2  vols.     Philadelphia  :  Carey  &  Lea,  1830. 

12.  The  Bravo ;  a  Tale.     By  the  Author  of  The  Spy,  The 
Red  Rover,  The  Water  Witch,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.     2  vols. 
Philadelphia  :  Carey  &  Lea,  1831. 

13.  Letter  of  J.  Fenimore  Cooper  to  Gen.  Lafayette  on  the 


292  APPENDIX. 

Expenditure  of  the  United  States  of  America.     50  pp. 
Paris:  Baudry's  Foreign  Library,  1831. 

14.  The  Heidenmauer  ;  or  the  Benedictines.     A  Legend  of 
the  Rhine.     By  the  Author  of  The  Prairie,  Red  Rover, 
Bravo,  etc.,  etc.     2  vols.     Philadelphia:  Carey  &  Lea, 
1832. 

15.  Letter  to  the  American  Public. 

Dated  Vevay,  Canton  de  Vaud,  Oct.  1,  1832;  first  pub 
lished  in  Philadelphia  National  Gazette,  Dec.  6.  The  sub 
ject  is  the  Expenses'  Controversy.  It  occupies  about  two 
columns. 

16.  The  Headsman;  or  the  Abbaye  des  Yignerons.     A  Tale. 
By  the  Author  of  The  Bravo,  etc.,  etc.     2  vols.     Phil 
adelphia:  Carey,  Lea  &  Bkinchard,  1833. 

17.  A  Letter  to  His  Countrymen.     By  J.  Fenimore-Cooper. 
116  pp.     New  York:  John  Wiley,  1834. 

18.  The  Monikins;  edited  by  the  Author  of  The  Spy.     2 
vols.     Philadelphia:  Carey,  Lea  &  Blanchard,  1835. 

19.  Comparative  Resources  of  the  American  Navy. 

In  Naval  Magazine,  vol.  i,  No.  1,  January,  1836,  pp. 
19-33. 

20.  Hints  on  Manning  the  Navy,  etc.,  etc. 

In  Naval  Magazine,  vol.  i.,  No.  2,  March,  1836,  pp. 
176-191.  This  was  published  the  following  May  in  pam 
phlet  form  by  the  "  Committee  of  Publication  for  the  Naval 
Magazine." 

21.  Sketches  of   Switzerland.     By  an   American.     2  vols. 
Philadelphia:  Carey,  Lea  &  Blanchard,  1836. 

The  English  title  was  "  Excursions  in  Switzerland." 

22.  Sketches  of  Switzerland.     By  an  American.     Part  Sec 
ond.     2  vols.     Philadelphia  :  Carey,  Lea  &  Blanchard, 
1836. 

The  English  title  was  "  A  Residence  in  France;  with  an 
Excursion  up  the  Rhine,  and  a  Second  Visit  to  Switzer 
land." 

23.  Gleanings  in  Europe.     By  an  American.     2  vols.     Phil 
adelphia:  Carey,  Lea  &  Blanchard,  1837. 


APPENDIX.  293 

This  work  is  devoted  to  France.  Its  English  title  is 
"  Recollections  of  Europe." 

24.  Gleanings  in   Europe.     England;  by  an  American.     2 
vols.     Philadelphia:  Carey,  Lea  &  Blanchard,  1837. 

This  was  published  in  England  under  the  title  of  "Eng 
land;  with  Sketches  of  Society  in  the  Metropolis." 

25.  Letter  to  the  Editors  of  the  Knickerbocker.    (On  the  re 
lations    between  himself    and   Sir  Walter  Scott,  etc.) 

In  Knickerbocker  Magazine,  vol.  xi.,  April,  1838,  pp. 
380-386. 

26.  Gleanings  in  Europe.     Italy;  by  an  American.     2  vols. 
Philadelphia:  Carey,  Lea  &  Blanchard,  1838. 

Published  in  England  under  the  title  of  "  Excursions  in 
Italy." 

27.  The  American  Democrat;  or  Hints  on  the  Social  and 
Civic  Relations  of  the  United  States  of  America.     By 
J.  Fenimore  Cooper.    Pp.  192.     Cooperstown':  H.  &  E. 
Phinney,  1838. 

28.  The  Chronicles  of  Cooperstown.   Pp.100.    Cooperstown: 
H.  &  E.  Phinney,  1838. 

Published  anonymously.  Republished  at  Albany  in  1862 
with  additional  notes  and  details  bringing  the  events  down 
to  that  year.  The  republication  is  entitled  "  A  Condensed 
History  of  Cooperstown ;  with  a  Biographical  Sketch  of  J. 
Fenimore  Cooper.  By  Rev.  T.  S.  Livermore,  A.  M."  It 
is  a  volume  of  276  pages,  and  contains  Bryant's  funeral  dis 
course  on  Cooper,  with  much  other  matter.  The  "  Chroni 
cles  of  Cooperstown  "  extend  from  page  9  to  page  86  inclu 
sive. 

29.  Homeward  Bound;  or  the  Chase.     A  Tale  of  the  Sea. 
By  the  Author  of  The  Pilot,  The  Spy,  etc.     2  vols. 
Philadelphia:  Carey,  Lea  &  Blanchard,  1838. 

30.  Review  of   the  "Memoirs  of  the  Life   of  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  Bart.     By  J.  G.  Lockhart." 

In  Knickerbocker  Magazine,  October,  1838,  vol.  xii.,  pp. 
349-366. 


294  APPENDIX. 

"  31.  Home  as  Found.  By  the  Author  of  Homeward  Bound, 
The  Pioneers,  etc.,  etc.  2  vols.  Philadelphia:  Lea  & 
Blanchard,  1838. 

In  England  published  under  the  title  of  "  Eve  Effingham; 
or  Home." 

32.  The  History  of  the  Navy  of  the  United  States  of  Amer 
ica.     By  J.  Fenimore   Cooper.     2  vols.     Philadelphia: 
Lea  &  Blanchard,  1839. 

33.  Letters  in  "  Cooperstown  Freeman's  Journal,"  July  1st 
and  July  8th,  1839. 

A  reply  to  the  criticism  upon  his  Naval  History,  or  rather 
upon  his  account  of  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie,  which  had  ap 
peared  in  the  New  York  Commercial  Advertiser  in  June, 
1839.  The  first  letter  occupies  two  columns,  the  second 
more  than  three. 

>34.  The  Pathfinder;  or  the  Inland  Sea.  By  the  Author  of 
The  Pioneers,  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  etc.  2  vols.  Phil 
adelphia  :  Lea  &  Blanchard,  1840. 

35.  Mercedes  of  Castile;  or  the  Voyage  to  Cathay.     By  the 
Author  of  The  Bravo,  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  etc. 
2  vols.     Philadelphia:  Lea  &  Blanchard,  1840. 

The  English  title  was  "  Mercedes  of  Castile.  A  Romance 
of  the  Days  of  Columbus." 

36.  History  of  the  Navy  of  the  United  States  of  America. 
Abridged    in    one    volume.     Pp.     447.     Philadelphia: 
Thomas  Cowperthwait  &  Co.,  1841. 

^37.  The  Deerslayer;  or  the  First  War  Path.  A  Tale.  By 
the  Author  of  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  The  Pioneers, 
etc.  2  vols.  Philadelphia  :  Lea  &  Blanchard,  1841. 
38.  "  Home  as  Found.  Lost  Chapter."  Preceded  by  a 
"Preface,"  and  a  "Letter  to  the  Editor."  In  the 
"  Brother  Jonathan"  newspaper  of  January  1,  1842. — 
Followed  by  a  Letter  to  the  Editor,  from  Cooper,  on 
"  The  Effingham  Matter,"  in  same  paper  for  February 
12,  1842,  and  by  two  articles  on  "The  Effingham  Con 
troversy,"  in  the  numbers  for  March  26,  1842,  and  April 
9,  1842. 


APPENDIX.  295 

39.  The  Two  Admirals;  a  Tale.     By  the  Author  of  The  Pi 
lot,  Red  Rover,  Water  Witch,  Homeward  Bound,  etc., 
etc.     2  vols.     Philadelphia  :  Lea  &  Blanchard,  1842. 

40.  Edinburgh  Review  on  James'  Naval  Occurrences  and 
Cooper's  Naval  History. 

In  the  United  States  Magazine  and  Democratic  Review, 
vol.  x.,  for  May  and  June,  1842.  First  article,  pp.  409-435  ; 
second  article,  pp.  515-541. 

41.  Richard  Somers. 

In  Graham's  Magazine  for  October,  1842. 

42.  William  Bainbridge, 

In  Graham's  Magazine  for  November,  1842. 

43.  The  Wing-and-Wing;  or  Le  Feu-Follet.     A  Tale.     By 
the  Author  of  The  Pilot,  Red  Rover,  Two  Admirals, 
Homeward    Bound,    etc.,    etc.     2   vols.     Philadelphia: 
Lea  &  Blanchard,  1842. 

In  England  this  was  published  under  the  title  "  The  Jack 
o'  Lantern  (Le  Feu-Folletj  ;  or  the  Privateer." 

44.  Richard  Dale. 

In  Graham's  Magazine  for  December,  1842. 

45.  Autobiography  of  a  Pocket  Handkerchief. 

In  Graham's  Magazine  for  January,  February,  March, 
and  April,  1843.  It  came  out  in  March  among  the  publica 
tions  of  the  "  Brother  Jonathan  "  newspaper  office,  and 
was  then  entitled  "  Le  Mouchoir ;  an  Autobiographical 
Romance."  The  English  title  was  "  The  French  Govern 
ess;  or  the  Embroidered  Handkerchief." 

46.  Oliver  Hazard  Perry. 

In  Graham's  Magazine  for  May  and  June,  1843. 

47.  John  Paul  Jones. 

In  Graham's  Magazine  for  July  and  August,  1843. 

48.  The  Battle  of  Lake  Erie ;  or  Answers  to  Messrs.  Bur- 
ges,  Duer,  and  Mackenzie.      By  J.   Fenimore  Cooper. 
Pp.  118.     Cooperstown:  H.  &  E.  Phinney,  1843. 

49.  Wyandotte;   or  the   Hutted  Knoll.     A  Tale.     By  the 
Author  of  The  Pathfinder,  Deerslayer,  Last  of  the  Mo- 


296  APPENDIX. 

hicans,  Pioneers,  Prairie,  etc.,  etc.     2  vols.     Philadel 
phia:  Lea  &  Blanchard,  1843. 

50.  Ned  Myers  ;  or  a  Life  before  the  Mast.     Edited  by  J. 
Fenimore  Cooper.     Pp.232.     Philadelphia:  Lea  &  Blan 
chard,  1843. 

51.  John  Shaw. 

In  Graham's  Magazine  for  March,  1844. 

52.  John  Barry. 

In  Graham's  Magazine  for  June,  1844. 

53.  Afloat  and  Ashore  ;  or  the  Adventures  of  Miles  Walling- 
ford.     By  the  Author  of  The  Pilot,  Red  Rover,  The 
Two  Admirals,  etc.     2  vols.     Philadelphia:    Published 
by  the  Author,  1844. 

54.  Proceedings  of  the  Naval  Court  Martial  in  the  Case  of 
Alexander  Slidell  Mackenzie,  a  Commander  in  the  Navy 
of   the  United  States,  etc.,  including  the  Charges  and 
Specifications  of  Charges,  preferred  against  him  by  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy.     To  which  is  annexed  an  Elab 
orate  Review.     By  James  Fennimore  Cooper.     Pp.  344. 
New  York:  Henry  G.  Langley,  1844.    (Cooper's  review 
extends  from  page  263   to   page   344   inclusive.     The 
spelling  of  the  name  was  due  to  the  publisher.) 

55.  Afloat  and  Ashore;  or  the  Adventures  of  Miles  Walling- 
ford.     By  the  Author  of   The   Pilot,  Red  Rover,  etc. 
Vols.  3  &  4.     Published  for  the  Author.     New  York  : 
Burgess,  Stringer  &  Co.,  1844. 

This  second  series  of  Afloat  and  Ashore  goes  in  this  coun 
try  under  the  name  of  "  Miles  Wallingford."  In  England 
it  was  published  as  "  Lucy  Hardinge." 

56.  John  Templer  Shubrick. 

In  Graham's  Magazine  for  December,  1844. 

57.  Melancthon  Taylor  Woolsey. 

In  Graham's  Magazine  for  January,  1845. 

58.  Edward  Preble. 

In  Graham's  Magazine  for  May  and  June,  1845. 

59.  Satanstoe;  or  the  Littlepage  Manuscripts.     A  Tale  of 


APPENDIX.  297 

the  Colony.     2  vols.     New  York  :  Burgess,  Stringer  & 
Co.,  1845. 

60.  The  Chainbearer;  or  the  Littlepage  Manuscripts.     Ed 
ited  by  the  Author  of  Satanstoe,  Spy,  Pathfinder,  Two 
Admirals,  etc.     2  vols.     New  York:  Burgess,  Stringer 
&  Co,  1846. 

61.  Lives  of   Distinguished  American  Naval  Officers.     By 
J.  Fenimore  Cooper.     Author  of  The  Spy,  The  Pilot, 
etc.     2  vols.     Philadelphia:  Carey  &  Hart,  1846.    Also, 
2  vols.     Auburn  :  Derby  &  Jackson,  1846. 

Volume  I.  contains,  in  the  following  order:  Bainbridge 
(No.  42),  Somers  (No.  41),  Shaw  (No.  51),  Shubriek  (No. 
56),  Preble  (No.  58). 

Volume  II.  contains  :  Jones  (No.  47),  Woolsey  (No.  57), 
Perry  (No.  46),  and  Dale  (No.  44);  Barry  (No.  12)  was 
not  included. 

62.  The  Redskins ;  or  Indian  and  Injin.     Being  the  conclu 
sion  of  the  Littlepage  Manuscripts.     By  the  Author  of 
The  Pathfinder,  Deerslayer,  Two  Admirals,  etc.     2  vols. 
New  York:  Burgess  &  Stringer,  1846. 

In  England  the  title  of  this  work  was  "  Ravensnest ;  or 
the  Redskins." 

63.  The  Islets  of  the  Gulf;  or  Rose  Budd. 

Begun  in  Graham's  Magazine  for  November,  1846,  and 
continued  through  every  succeeding  number  until  March, 
1848,  in  which  month  it  was  concluded.  It  was  published 
in  book  form  March  21,  1848,  by  Burgess,  Stringer  &  Co.,  as 
"Jack  Tier;  or  the  Florida  Reefs."  In  England  the  title 
was  "  Captain  Spike;  or  the  Islets  of  the  Gulf." 

64.  The  Crater;  or  Vulcan's  Peak.     A  Tale  of  the  Pacific. 
By  the  Author  of  Miles  Wallingford,  The  Red  Rover, 
The   Pilot,    etc.,   etc.     2   vols.     New    York:   Burgess, 
Stringer  &  Co.,  1847. 

The  English  title  was  "  Mark's  Reef  ;  or  the  Crater." 
Jack  Tier;  or  the  Florida  Reefs,  1848.     See  No.  63. 

65.  The  Oak  Openings ;  or  the  Bee  Hunter.     By  the  Au- 


298  APPENDIX. 

thor  of  The  Pioneers,  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  Pathfinder, 
Deerslayer,  etc.,  etc.  2  vols.  New  York:  Burgess, 
Stringer  &  Co.,  1848. 

The  English  title  was  "  The  Bee  Hunter;  or  the  Oak 
Openings." 

66.  The  Sea  Lions;  or  the  Lost  Sealers.     By  the  Author  of 
The  Crater,  etc.     2  vols.     New  York:  Stringer  &  Town- 
send,  1849. 

67.  The  Ways  of  the  Hour  ;  a  Tale.     By  the  Author  of  The 
Spy,  The  Red  Rover,  etc.,  etc.     1  vol.    New  York:  G. 
P.  Putnam,  1850. 

POSTHUMOUS   PUBLICATIONS. 

68.  Old  Ironsides. 

In  Putnam's  Magazine,  vol.  i.,  No.  v.,  May,  1853,  pp, 
473-487;  and  in  No.  vi.,  June,  1853,  pp.  593-G07. 

This  is  a  history  of  the  United  States  frigate  Constitution. 

69.  Fragments  from  a  Diary  of  James  Feniinore  Cooper. 

In  Putnam's  Magazine,  new  series,  vol.  i.,  February, 
1868,  pp.  167-172;  and  June,  1868,  pp.  730-737. 

70.  The  Battle  of  Pittsburgh  Bay. 

In  January,  1869,  of  Putnam's  Magazine,  vol.  iii.,  new  se 
ries,  pp.  49-59. 

A  note  to  this  article  says  that  it  was  prepared  as  a  lect 
ure  to  be  delivered  before  the  New  York  Historical  Society. 
The  records  of  that  Society,  however,  contain  no  reference 
to  any  lecture  delivered  by  Cooper. 

71.  The  Eclipse. 

In  Putnam's  Magazine,  new  series,  vol.  iv.,  for  Septem 
ber,  18G9,  pp.  352-359.  Written  about  1831,  and  gives  an 
account  of  the  eclipse  of  the  sun  in  June,  1806. 

Besides  these  there  are  numerous  letters  written  to  the 
newspapers,  and  in  particular  the  letters  written  to  the 
Paris  journal,  the  "  National,"  in  1833.  During  Cooper's  life 
it  was  frequently  said  that  he  was  engaged  in  preparing  a 


APPENDIX.  299 

work  on  the  Middle  States  of  the  Union ;  but  no  trace  of 
such  a  production  was  found  among  his  papers.  A  work  of 
his  on  "  The  Towns  of  Manhattan  "  was  partly  finished  and 
in  press  at  the  time  of  his  death ;  but  the  portion  printed 
was  entirely  destroyed  by  fire.  Part  of  the  manuscript, 
however,  was  recovered.  On  the  4th  of  August,  1841, 
Cooper  also  delivered  an  address  before  the  Literary  Socie 
ties  of  Hobart  College,  Geneva,  N.  Y.;  but  this  he  himself 
burned  on  the  day  it  was  delivered. 

A  few  works  have  been  wrongly  attributed  to  him.  One 
of  these  is  "  The  Cruise  of  the  Somers;  illustrative  of  the 
Despotism  of  the  Quarter  Deck  ;  and  of  the  Unmanly  Con 
duct  of  Commander  Mackenzie."  New  York:  1844.  Another 
is  "Elinor  Wyllys;  or  the  Young  Folk  of  Longbridge." 
Philadelphia:  1846.  Of  this  novel  Cooper  was  the  nomi 
nal  editor,  and  to  it  he  contributed  a  short  preface.  A  third 
work,  which  has  been  falsely  attributed  to  him,  is  entitled 
"  The  Republic  of  the  United  States;  its  Duties  to  Itself, 
and  its  Responsible  Relations  to  other  Countries."  New 
York:  1848. 


INDEX. 


ADAMS,  John,  113. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  224-226. 

"Afloat  and  Ashore,"  232,  240-253, 

2G3,  '296. 

Albany,  N.  Y.,  6,  15. 
"  Albany  Argus,"  182. 
"  Albany  Evening  Journal,"  Cooper's 

libel  suits  with,  187,  190-196. 
America,  intellectual  dependence  of, 

on  England  in  1820  and  later,  18-21, 

34,  35,  02,  92 ;  literary  state  of,  in 

1820,  30-32. 
"American  Scott,   The,"  Cooper  so 

termed,  58,  106 ;  his  feelings  about 

it,  59,  161. 
"American  Democrat,  The,"  177-179, 

293. 

Angevine,  14-16,  63. 
Anti-Rent  Novels,  The,  251-254. 
Ashburton  Treaty,  237. 
"Augsburger  Allgemeine   Zeitung," 

107. 

"Autobiography  of  a  Pocket  Hand 
kerchief,"  249,  295. 

BAIXBRIDGE,  Commodore  William,  295, 

297. 
Balzac,     Honore    de,   Criticisms   of 

Cooper,  204,  240,  284. 
Barry  Cornwall.     See  Procter. 
Barry,  John,  296,  297. 
Benjamin,  Park,  159;  Cooper's  libel 

suit  with,  187. 
Bentley,  London  publisher  of  Cooper's 

later  work?,  262. 
"  Blackwood's  Magazine,"  58 ;  abuse 

of  Cooper,  174. 

Berne,  Cooper's  residence  near,  68. 
Boone,  Daniel,  72. 
"Borderers,    The"   (English   title), 

291. 

Boston,  Cooper's  criticism  of,  171, 172. 
Bostonians  practice  "  gouging,"  97. 
"  Bravo,  The,"  108-111,  115,  128, 130, 

277,  291. 
Bread  and  Cheese  Club,  founded  by 


Cooper,  63 ;  its  members,  63 ;  gives 

dinner  to  Cooper,  127. 
Brenton's,  Captain  Edward  Pelham, 

"Naval  History  of  Great  Britain," 

202. 
British  press,  Cooper's  opinion  of,  106, 

136,  137 ;  its  attacks  upon  Cooper, 

138,  173-176,  199,  236. 
"Brother  Jonathan,   The,"  newspa 
per,  262,  294,  295. 
Brown,  Charles  Brockden,  30. 
Bryant,  William  Cullen,  17,  63,  80, 

266 ;    delivers   funeral   oration   on 

Cooper,  268. 

Bulwer,  Sir  Edward  Lytton,  124, 125. 
Burges,  Tristam,  213,  221,  224,  226, 

233,  295. 

Burlington,  N.  J.,  2, 12. 
Burton's  Theatre,  Cooper's  comedy 

acted  at,  263. 

CAMPBELL,  Judge  William  W.,  216. 

Canning,  George,  68. 

"  Captain  Spike  "  (English  title),  297. 

Carey  and  Lea,  publishers,  66. 

"  Chainbearer,  The,"  252-254,  297. 

Chalet,  The,  Cooper's  farm  near 
Cooperstown,  263. 

Champlain,  Lake,  12. 

Chauncey,  Commodore  Isaac,  127. 

Chesapeake,  American  man-of-war, 
202. 

"Chronicles  of  Cooperstown,  The," 
293. 

Clay,  Henry,  67. 

Clinton,  DeWitt,  127. 

"  Coelebs,"  Hannah  More's,  21. 

Colburn,  London  publisher,  28,  94. 

"  Comparative  Resources  of  the  Amer 
ican  Navy,"  292. 

Constitution,  ship-of-war,  210,  298. 

Cooper,  Fem'more,  15,  63. 

Cooper,  J.  F.  :  born  at  Burlington,  2 ; 
removed  to  Cooperstown,  2 ;  early 
education,  6 ;  at  Albany,  6 ;  at  Yale 
College,  7 ;  dismissed  from  college, 


302 


INDEX. 


8 ;  serves  before  the  mast,  9,  10 ; 
enters  navy  as  midshipman,  11 ;  his 
service,  11 ;  marries,  12 ,-  resigns 
position  in  the  navy,  14 ;  residences 
from  1811  to  1822,  14,  15 ;  his  chil 
dren,  15  ;  begins  literary  life,  16  ; 
moves  into  New  York  city,  G3 ; 
founds  the  Bread  and  Cheese  club, 
63 ;  has  family  name  changed  to 
Fenimore  -  Cooper,  3  ;  is  given  a 
public  dinner,  127  ;  sails  for  Europe, 
67  ;  made  consul  at  Lyons,  G7  ;  resi 
dences  in  France,  England,  Switzer 
land,  Italy,  and  Germany,  67,  68; 
cordial  reception  in  Paris,  68,  69 ; 
wide  extent  of  his  reputation,  56- 
58,  77  ;  returns  to  America,  117  ;  re 
fuses  a  public  dinner,  128;  resides 
in  New  York  city,  117;  buys  his 
father's  house  in  Cooperstown  and 
makes  it  his  permanent  home,  117  ; 
has  a  controversy  with  citizens  of 
Cooperstown,  142-148  ;  brings  a 
number  of  newspaper  libel  suits, 
180-197  ;  engages  unsuccessfully  in 
business  operations,  261 ;  his  farm, 
263,  264 ;  becomes  a  communicant 
in  the  Episcopal  Church,  266;  his 
death,  2G7 ;  funeral  oration  over, 
delivered  by  Bryant,  268;  happi 
ness  of  his  home  life,  13,  14,  233, 
'  234,  285 ;  wide  circulation  of  his 
works,  37,  56,  76,  270;  pecuniary 
profits  from  their  sale,  64-66,  261- 
263 ;  his  success  as  a  lawyer,  182, 
189,  216-218,  220;  his  sensitiveness 
to  criticism,  41-44,  286  ;  defects  of 
his  literary  art,  50,  51 ;  failure  in 
characterization,  152,  155,  277,  278  ; 
female  characters,  26-28,  153,  154, 
278-281 ;  success  in  characters  from 
low  life,  53-55,  72,  73, -152,  283; 
fondness  for  commonplace,  84,  242, 
276  ;  prolixity  of  his  introductions, 
75,  134,  242,  276  ;  improbability  and 
carelessness  in  the  details  of  his  sto 
ries,  51,  53, 276,  277  ;  carelessness  in 
the  development  of  the  plot,  28, 271, 
272,  275,  276 ;  criticism  on  language 
and  carelessness  in  use  of  it,  130, 
272-275  ;  his  humor,  119,  239,  240  ; 
his  fondness  for  natural  scenery, 
and  success  in  description,  8,  69, 134, 
168, 169,  240,  241,  264,  282-284;  his 
political  opinions,  82-84,  108,  109; 
his  imperiousness  of  manner,  79,  80, 
286;  his  pugnacity,  24,  75,  80,  81, 
146, 147,  285";  his  generosity,  81,  82  ; 
his  patriotism,  49,  85,  86,  94,  110, 
115,  128,  231,  237,  238,  243 ;  depth 
and  narrowness  of  religious  feeling, 
22-26,  75,  243,  256,  258-261,  266; 


high  sense  of  honor,  82,  286 ;  love 
of  truth,  202,  203,  222,  232,  287, 288. 

Cooper,  Paul,  15,  63. 

Cooper,  Richard,  182,  185,  220. 

Cooper,  Susan  Fenimore,  15. 

Cooper,  William,  Cooper's  father,  2. 
3,  9,  142-145,  188,  192. 

Cooperstown,  situation  of,  1,  3,  4; 
when  founded,  2 ;  original  popula 
tion  of,  5 ;  Cooper's  residences  in, 
2,  3,  14,  117  ;  his  controversy  with 
citizens  of,  142-148 ;  farm  near,  263, 
264;  his  death  at,  2GG,  2G7 ;  the 
Chronicles  of,  293. 

"  Cooperstown  Freeman's  Journal," 
democratic  newspaper,  143,  144; 
Cooper's  letters  to,  147,  148,  294. 

Copyright,  international,  Cooper's 
feelings  in  regard  to,  ICG ;  pecuni 
ary  loss  sustained  by  the  lack  of 
one,  2G1. 

Copyright  law,  English,  of,  1838,  66, 
2G1. 

Courier, Paul,  liberal  sentiments  about 
America,  87. 

Court  of  Errors,  The,  of  New  York, 
228,  229. 

"Crater,  The,"  255-258,  274,  297. 

Cushing,  Caleb,  replies  to  Cooper,  132. 

DALE,  Richard,  295,  297. 

Davis,  Admiral  Charles  H.,  213. 

"  Deerslayer,  The,"  239-242,  272,  294. 

DeKay,  James  E.,  63. 

DeLancey  family,  12,  13. 

DeLancey,  Susan  Augusta,  12-14,  16, 

70,  233,  234  ;  married  to  Cooper,  12  ; 

her  death,  267. 
DeLancey,    William    H.,    bishop    of 

Western  New  York,  266. 
Democratic  party,  Cooper  nominally 

belonging  to,  133,  171. 
"  Democratic  Review,"  207,  208,  295. 
Derby,  Lord,  52. 
"Diary  of  James  Fenimore  Cooper, 

Fragments  from,"  298. 
Dresden,  Saxony,  Cooper's  residence 

at,  68,  107,  123. 
Duer,   William  Alexander,   Cooper's 

controversy  with,  212,  221-223,  233, 

295. 
Duraud,  Asher  B.,  the  engraver,  63. 

"  ECLIPSE,  THE,"  298. 
Edgeworth,  Maria,  57. 
"Edinburgh  Review,  The,"  205-208, 

295. 
Elliott,   Commodore  Jesse,   208-213, 

222  ;  has  a  medal  struck  in  honor 

of  Cooper,  224-226. 
"  Encyclopedia  Britannica,"  notice  of 

Cooper's  life  in,  175.          . 


INDEX. 


303 


England,  Cooper's  residence  in,  68, 
96  ;  feeling  of,  towards  America, 
87-98  ;  criticism  of,  by  Cooper,  105, 
136,  137  ;  his  work  on,  135,  293 ; 
hostility  expressed  for  Cooper  in, 
92,  10i5,  138,  173-176. 

Effingham,  name  applied  to  Cooper, 
130,  158,  183,  191,  294. 

Episcopal  Church,  Cooper's  attach 
ment  to,  23,  245,  249,  254,  257,  259, 
2GO,  206. 

Erie  Lake,  Battle  of,  controversy  in 
regard  to,  208-227,  294. 

European  ignorance  of  America,  86- 
88,  100,  101. 

"Eve  Effingham"  (English  title), 
29i. 

"  Excursions  in  Italy  "  (English  title), 
293. 

"Excursions  in  Switzerland"  (Eng 
lish  title),  292. 

Expenses'  Controversy,  The,  76,  111- 
115,  292. 

FAY,  Thecdore  S.,  132. 

Federalist    Party,    9,    171  ;    Cooper 

brought  up  in,  92 ;  feeling  of,  to- 

warcid  England,  92,  93. 
Fenimore  family,  3,  188. 
Fenimore,  near  Cooperstown,  Coop 
er's  residence  at,  14. 
Fenimore -Cooper,       family      name 

changed  to,  3. 
Florence,  Cooper's  residence  at,  68, 

74,  120. 

Foot,  Samuel  A.,  215-221. 
France,  Cooper's  work  on,  135,  292, 

293. 

Francis,  Dr.  John  W.,  266,  267. 
"Eraser's  Magazine,  "  its  attack  on 

Cooper,  174-175. 
Free  trade,  Cooper's  hostility  to,  133, 

171. 
"French  Governess,  The"  (English 

title),  295. 

French  opinion  of  Cooper,  36,  294. 
French  social  life,  Cooper's  opinion 

of,  69. 

GALITZIX,  Princess,  69. 

Gardner,  Colonel  Charles  K.,  287. 

Gifford,  William,  editor  of  "The 
Quarterly,"  35. 

Gisquet,  French  prefect  of  police,  37. 

"Gleanings  in  Europe,"  135-140,  204, 
292,  293. 

Glens  Falls,  52. 

"  Glory  and  Shame  of  England,"  at 
tack  on  Cooper  in,  234,  235. 

"Gotham  and' the  Gothamites,"  60. 

Gouging,  prevalence  of,  in  America, 
97;  practiced  by  Bostonians,  97. 


"  Graham's  Magazine,"  229, 245,  note, 

248,  255,  295-297. 
Sreeley,  Horace,  159,  180,  181,  187  ; 

Cooper's  libel  suits  with,  197,  198. 
Sreenough,  Horatio,  81,  115-116, 155. 
Grose's   "Dictionary  of    the  Vulgar 

Tongue,"  97. 

HALLECK,  Fitzgreene,  63,  246,  note. 
Harris,  Leavitt,  113,  114. 
Haydon,  Benjamin  Robert,  58. 
Hazlitt,  William,  106. 
Headley,  Rev.  J.  T.,  235. 
'Headsman,  The,"  108, 109,  272,  292. 
"Heathcotes,   The"   (English  title), 

"  Heidenmauer,  The,"  108,  109,  280. 

292. 

Heine,  107. 

Hillard,  George  S.,  160. 
Hillhouse,  James  A.,  7. 
"  Hints  on  Manning  the  Navy,"  292. 
Hobart  College,  Cooper's  address  at, 

"Home  as  Found,"  149,  150-159,  294. 
"Home  as  Found,  Lost  Chapter  of," 

294. 
"Homeward  Bound,"  149,  150,  152, 

155,  293. 

IMPRESSMENT  of  American  seamen,  93. 
Indian  character,  Cooper's  view  of, 

54,55. 
Ingram's,  John  H.,  "Life  of  Poe," 

246,  note. 
Irving,  Washington,  3,   35,   56,   268, 

"  Islets  of  the  Gulf,  The."  See  "Jack 
Tier." 

Italy,  Cooper's  work  on,  135,  293  ;  at 
tachment  of  Cooper  to,  69-71. 

"JACK  o'  LANTEEX,  THE"  (English 
title),  295. 

Jackson,  President  Andrew,  131y  210. 

"Jack  Tier,"  255,  256,  263,  297. 

James's,  William,  "  Naval  History  of 
Great  Britain,"  205-207,  295  ;  Coop 
er's  opinion  of,  206,  207. 

Jarvis,  John  Wesley,  63. 

Jay,  John,  29. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  67. 

Jones,  John  Paul,  48,  57,  288,  295, 
297. 

Jordan,  Ambrose  C.,  190. 

Judah,  Samuel  B.  H.,  60. 

Jury,  trial  by,  260. 

KENT,  Chancellor  James,  63,  127. 
King,  Charles,  127. 
"Knickerbocker  Magazine,"  160, 161, 


304 


INDEX. 


LAFAYETTE, 111, 112. 

"Last  of  the  Mohicans,  The,"  52-55, 
56,  58,  GG,  71,  72,  239,  291. 

Lawrence,  Captain  James,  12. 

"Leather-Stocking  Tales,  The,"  40, 
55,  '239  ;  Cooper's  opinion  of,  241. 

Leghorn,  120. 

Lester,  C.  Edwards,  235,  236. 

"Letter  to  General  Lafayette,"  112, 
291. 

"Letter  to  his  Countrymen,"  129- 
132,  292. 

"Letter  to  the  American  Public," 
114,  292. 

Libel  suits,  Cooper's,  with  the  Otsego 
"Republican,"  185,  18G;  with  the 
Norwich  "Telegraph,"  184,  18G ; 
with  the  Oneida  «  Whig,"  187  ;  with 
the  New  York  "Evening  Signal," 
187  ;  with  the  New  York  "  Courier 
and  Enquirer,"  187-190;  with  the 
Albany  "Evening  Journal,"  187, 
190, 190 ;  with  the  New  York  "  Trib 
une,"  1S7,  197  ;  with  the  New  York 
"Commercial  Advertiser,"  187, 
197,  212,  214-221,  223-224. 

"Lionel  Lincoln,"  49-52,  291. 

Livermcre,  Rev.  T.  S.,  293. 

Livingston,  Edward,  114. 

Lockhart's,  John  Gibson,  "  Life  of 
Scott,"  ICO,  101,  293. 

London,  Cooper's  residence  in,  68, 
96-98. 

"London  Times,"  its  attack  on  Coop 
er,  175. 

Lord,  Daniel,  Jr.,  215-221. 

Louis  Philippe,  69,  107. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  156. 

"  Lucy  Htrding  "  (English  title),  249, 
296;  251. 

Lyons,  Cooper  consul  at,  67. 

MACKENZIE,  Alexander  Slidell,  212, 
213,  21(5,  221,  222,  233,  295. 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  97. 

Mamaroneck,  N.  Y.,  12,  13,  14. 

Man,  Isle  of,  Cooper  reported  birth 
place  in,  3. 

«*  Mark's  Reef  "  (English  title),  297. 

McHarg,  Rev.  C.  W.,  229. 

"Mercedes  of  Castile,"  232,  242,  272, 
278. 

Mickiewicz,  Adam,  107. 

Miller,  London  publisher,  35. 

"Miles  Wallingford,"  93,  249,  285, 
2%. 

Mitford,  Mary  Russell,  57. 

"  MonikinP,  The,"  133-135. 

Montagu,  Mrs.  Basil,  91. 

Moore,  Thomas,  88,  96. 

More,  Hannah,  21. 

Morris,  George  P.,  132. 


Morse,  S.  F.  B.,  C3,  76. 

Murray,  John,  London  publisher,  35. 

NAPLES,  Cooper's  residence  at,  68. 
Naples,  bay  of,  compared  with  that 
of  New  York,  1C4,  249,  254. 

"National  "  (Park),  113,  298. 

"Naval  Magazine,'*  201,  292. 

"  Naval  History  of  the  United  States," 
200-230,  232,  233,  294. 

"Naval  Officers,  Lives  of,"  228,  229, 
297. 

Neal,  John,  30. 

Ned  Myers,  247,  248,  263,  296. 

New  Enpland,  Cooper's  diflike  of, 
245,  24G,  247,  249,  250,  253,  257, 
259  ;  Cooper's  unpopularity  in,  50, 
247. 

New  Haven,  8. 

"New  Monthly  Magazine,  Colburn's," 
sketch  of  Cooper  in,  94. 

Newport,  74  ;  stone  tower  at,  226. 

"New  World,  The,"  newspaper,  262. 

New  York  (city),  Cooper's  residences 
in,  15,  47,  63,  67, 117  ;  Cooper's  crit 
icism  of  society  in,  150,  151,  158, 
249;  social  life  in,  121;  Cooper's 
prophecy  about,  102. 

"  New  York  American,"  127,  128. 

"  New  York  Commercial  Advertiser," 
129;  Cooper's  libel  suits  with,  187, 
212,  214-221,  223,  224. 

"New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer," 
129,  130  ;  Cooper's  libel  suits  with, 
187-190. 

"  New  York  Evening  Post,"  182. 

"New  York  Evening  Signal,"  Coop 
er's  libel  suit  with,  187. 

New  York  Historical  Society,  298. 

"New  York  Home  Journal,"  13. 

"New  York  Mirror,"  132. 

"New  York  Patriot,"  287. 

"New  York  Tribune,"  Cooper's  libel 
suits  with,  187,  192,  197. 

"New  Yorker,  The,"  158,  182. 

Newspapers,  Cooper's  attacks  on,  43, 
176-180  ;  libel  suits  with,  180-199. 

"North  American  Review,  The,"  60, 
61,  212,  213. 

"Norwich  Telegraph,"  Cooper's  libel 
suit  with,  184,  185. 

"  Notions  of  the  Americans,"  101-106, 
291. 

Nugent,  Lord,  96. 

"OAK  OPENINGS,  THE,"  255,  258,  2G3, 

275,  297. 

"Odofried  the  Outcast,"  60. 
Old  Ironsides,  298. 
"  Oneida  Whig,  The,"  Cooper's  libel 

suit  with,  187. 
Ontario,  Lake,  11, 169,  240. 


INDEX. 


305 


Otsego  Hall,  Cooper's  residence,  2, 

117,  207. 

Otsego  Lake,  1,  4,  117,  142,  240. 
"Otsego  Republican,"  Cooper's  libel 

suit  with,  185,  186. 

PARIS,  Cooper's  residence  at,  67-C9, 

107. 

Parsons,  Usher,  227. 
"Pathfinder,  The,"  11,  239-242,  283, 

294.—-— 

Paulding,  James  Kirke,  30. 
Paulding,  Hiram,  216. 
Peale,  Rembrandt,  115. 
Percival,  James  G.,  60-62. 
Perry,  Captain  Matthew,  210,  212. 
Perry,  Commodore  Oliver  H.,  208-229, 

295,  297. 
"Philadelphia National  Gazette,"  114, 

292. 
"  Pilot,  The,"  44-48,  57,  74,  95,  283- 

288,  291. 
"  Pioneers,  The,"  39-44,  61,  65,  72, 

117,  150,  239,  287,  291. 
Piracy  of  books,  261,  262. 
Pittsburgh  Bay,  Battle  of,  298. 
Poe,  EJgar  A.,  245,  246,  note. 
Poland,  revolt  of,  107  ;  Cooper's  ef 
forts  to  aid,  108. 

Prairie,  The,"  61,  71,  73,  76,  95,  239, 

283,  291. 

Preble,  Edward,  296,  297. 
«'  Precaution,"  16-28,  243. 
Price  of  Cooper's  later  novels,  262, 

263. 

Princeton  College,  246. 
Procter,  Bryan  Waller,  58,  161. 
Provincialism  of  America,  138,  150, 

164,  165,  168. 

Puritanism,  23-29,  75,  243. 
"  Putnam's  Magazine,"  298. 

"  QUARTERLY  REVIEW,  THE,"  35,  277, 
287  ;  its  attacks  on  America,  89 ;  its 
attack  on  Cooper,  205. 

"  RAVEXSNEST  "  (English  title),  297. 

"  Recollections  of  Europe  "  (English 
title),  293. 

"  Redskins,  The,"  253,  254,  263,  297. 

"  Red  Rover,  The,"  65,  73,  99,  226, 
227,  255,  291. 

Reporters  of  newspapers,  Cooper's  at 
tack  on,  176. 

"Residence  in  France"  (English 
title),  292. 

Revolution  of  1830,  French,  106,  107. 

"  Revue  Britannique,"  111-113. 

Rhode  Island  Historical  Society,  213 ; 
refuses  to  accept  the  Cooper  medal, 

oo  <_o*>7 

Rives,  William  C.,  114. 


Rome,  Cooper's  residence  at,  68,  75. 
Russia,  early  cordial  relations  of,  with 
the  United  States,  95. 

SAND,  George,  284. 

"  Satanstoe,"  252,  253,  254,  263,  296. 

Saulnier,  M.,  Ill,  112. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  31,  33,  41,  44,  56- 

59,  91,  110,  124,  277,  278,  283,  287  ; 

his  mention  of   Cooper,   69,   160; 

Lockhart's  life  of,  159-161. 
Scott,  General  Winfield,  127. 
"  Sea  Lions,  The,"  255,  258-260,  263, 

298. 
Sea  novel,  Cooper's  creation  of,  44-47, 

57,  74. 

Shannon,  English  ship-of-war,  12,  202. 
Shanty,  Cooper's  derivation  of,  275. 
Shaw,  John,  296,  297. 
Shubrick,  John  Templer,  293,  297. 
Silliman,  Professor  Benjamin,  8. 
"  Sketches  of  Switzerland,"  135-140, 

292. 
Slavery,  Cooper's  feelings  toward,  85, 

104. 

Smith,  Sydney,  96. 
Smollett,  Tobias  G.,  45,  57. 
Somers,  American  man-of-war,  228. 
Somers,  Richard,  295,  297. 
Sorrento,  Cooper's  residence  at,  G8, 

71,  75. 

Sotheby,  William,  97,  98. 
Southey,  Robert,  91. 
Spencer,  John  C.,  228. 
Spencer,  Joshua  A.,  186. 
"  Spy,  The,"  13,  30-38,  43,  49,  57,  65, 

66,  280,  283,  290. 
Squier,  E.  G.,  37 
Steeveus,  Samuel,  215-221. 
Sterling,  merchant  ship,  9, 10, 247, 248. 
Stone,  William  Leet,  Cooper's  libel 

suits  against,  187,  214-221,  223,  224. 
Simmer,  Charles,  91,  160. 
Susquehanna  River,  1,  2,  264. 

TALLEYRAND  visits  Cooper's  father,  5. 

Three  Mile  Point  Controversy,  The, 
142-148,  156. 

Ticknor,  George,  91. 

Tories  of  American  Revolution,  Coop 
er's  treatment  of,  13. 

"Towns  of  Manhattan,  The,"  266. 
299. 

Tuckerman,  Henry  T. ,  his  account  of 
a  trial  scene,  217,  218. 

"Two  Admirals,  The,"  242,  243,  276, 
295. 

Tyler,  John,  President,  228. 

"  UNTIED  SERVICE  JOURNAL,"  its  criti 
cism  of  Cooper's  Naval  History,  204, 
205. 


306 


INDEX. 


"Upside  Down,"  Cooper's  comedy, 
2G3. 

VAN  RENSSELAER,  Stephen,  the  pat- 

roon,  251. 

Verplanck,  Gulian  Crommelin,  63. 
Vesuvius,  American  man-of-war,  11. 

"WATER  WITCH,  THE,"  75,  76,  78, 106 

291 ;  refused  publication  in  Rome 

123. 

Waverley  Novels,  31,  44. 
"Ways  of  the  Hour,  The,"  255,  260 

263,  272,  274,  277,  298. 
Webster,  Daniel,  2G8. 
Weed,  Thurlow,  122,  190;  Cooper's 

libel    suits  against,   187,   190-196; 

admiration  for  Cooper's  novels,  196. 
"Wept  of  Wish-ton-Wish,  The,"  74, 

99,  272,  291. 


Westchester  County,  New  York,  12 

Whig  party,  its  hostility  to  Cooper 

131* 
Whig  press,  attacks  on  Cooper,  147 

148,  158,  159,  173, 177, 180, 184, 185. 

199,  211,  235^  24l! 
Wiley,  John,  publisher,  63,  66. 
Willis,  N.  P.,  132. 
Wilson,  John,  58. 
"  Wing-and-Wing,"  93,  243,  244,  247, 

Woolsey,  Melancthon  Taylor,  11,  296, 

Wright,  Fanny,  36. 

"  Wyandotte,"  13,  244,  245,  263,  295. 

YALE  COLLEGE,  246 ;  Cooper's  connec 
tion  with,  7-9. 


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